


blister and burn, baby

by hotelmichelle



Series: 2012 'verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes is a tease, Communication Issues, Consent Issues, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Metal Arm Kink, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Alternating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Tension, Top Steve Rogers, Touch Starved Bucky Barnes, general Winter Solider trauma, gentle dom Steve Rogers, soft manipulative Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:28:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26057992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotelmichelle/pseuds/hotelmichelle
Summary: Bucky yawns himself awake, stretching out over the arm of the couch. He scratches at his chest and turns his head to Steve. “Why did we mess around and then stop?”“What do you mean?”“You said we messed around when we were kids, then we stopped, then we started again in the war. Why?”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: 2012 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902526
Comments: 42
Kudos: 321





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic depicts behavior that should not be imitated in real life. Communicate! With! Your! Partners! It's a sequel to Act of Sage but can be read on its own. I'll post updates weekly (on Sundays). heed the tags and hmu on tumblr if you have questions.
> 
> Also: so so sorry I've been slow to read/respond to comments. Getting this finished + moving + law school starting again has really taken up all my time recently. I wanted to focus on getting this out asap since I said about a month ago that I would post in 2 weeks. I appreciate you all so much and I plan to go through them tonight or tomorrow!
> 
> s/o to my friend Dani for this text: “but on soft manipulative bucky: I feel like bucky would alternate wildly between “no wtf get away from me touch is Bad don’t touch me” and “oh my god I love you so much and I’m kinda obsessed with the idea of fucking you but I can’t figure out how to say that so please just get it.” plus he’s gone from No Emotions Allowed to these super intense feelings in like 6 mos so he’s just a little lost. meanwhile steve’s like…uh Sam so I think he might hate me”

The car takes Bucky to Brooklyn. Steve did not tell a lie. It’s not the same Brooklyn apartment from Steve’s stories, but that place is gone and that is not Steve’s fault.

This Brooklyn apartment has two bedrooms and a microwave for heating up food. There are two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room; Bucky can walk around all these rooms. He can open all the closet doors to look inside. He wants to open the fridge door too, but he can’t do that while Steve is hanging around.

And Steve is always hanging around.

It is warm inside the apartment even though it is very cold outside. So, that is good.

At night, Steve leads Bucky to his bedroom and lets him go inside. The door has a lock, but Steve does not turn it. Steve did not tell a lie. He leaves Bucky’s door open a little bit.

Bucky lays in his bed in the dark; very still. He can hear Steve’s footsteps in the hallway, then around his own bedroom.

The shower goes on. Bucky doesn’t move.

When the sounds stop, Bucky figures Steve must have gone to bed. He waits a while longer because Steve might be lying in bed reading or drawing.

The clock says: 1:08am. It was 10:23pm when Bucky got into bed, and 10:58pm when he last heard a sound from Steve’s room.

This means that Steve is probably asleep.

Bucky gets up very quietly. He can often hear hums and clicks coming from the listeners and cameras, but that is not good enough to rely on. What Bucky hears and sees are not always the Real World. He knows that now.

His bedroom has two small lights, one tall one, and one that’s stuck to the ceiling. There is one smoke detector, three pictures, and two small potted plants. Bucky checks all these things for the listeners. Silently, he turns the tables on their sides and crawls under the bed, then he goes through every piece in the closet and crawls along the floor molding.

He finds: no listeners, no cameras.

The clock says: 3:49am.

Bucky lies in his bed until he hears Steve leave his room and go into the kitchen. 7:03am. He does not want to talk to Steve but if he stays in bed while Steve eats, then he will miss mealtime. Breakfast is 7:03am.

That is a strange time, so it’s more likely that breakfast was actually 7:00am and Steve is three minutes late. Don’t forget. 7:00am.

In the kitchen, Steve is drinking coffee from a mug. There is no food. Bucky was wrong. Breakfast time is unknown.

“Sleep okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky says, “Yes.”

  
  


Much later, Bucky sits on the couch and looks at his books. The ones he got to keep. (You got to keep all the books, stupid.)

Bucky thinks and thinks about his bookshelf and the sheets on his bed. The real bed. They’re back in his real room. Now, they’re good as gone. All because Steve made them move. Steve took his things and he’ll never see them again.

He flips a page.

Steve says, “How’s your book?” but Bucky does not answer. He is mad and he doesn’t want to talk all because Steve took his things. That is Steve’s fault.

Steve is so good, he lets Bucky ignore him.

  
  


Bucky is trying to go to bed, but Steve won’t let him. This is because Steve wants to talk.

Bucky will not talk. His mouth stays closed. Steve can pull him by the arm and put the metal handcuffs on him and spray the cold water on him, but he will not talk. He doesn’t want to talk and that’s it.

When Bucky tries to escape down the hall, Steve follows. He says, “You’re obviously mad at me.”

“I’m not,” Bucky says. He is talking now. This is Steve’s fault. He didn’t want to talk and Steve is making him.

Steve says that Bucky doesn’t have to follow his rules, but he is telling lies. He is always telling lies.

Bucky tries to slam the door closed on Steve’s fingers, but Steve catches it before it can crush his hand. Steve is very strong. “No, I can tell that you are. C’mon, why are you mad at me now?”

Steve thinks everything is about him. He just assumes that Bucky’s world revolves around him. (And where do you think he learned that from?)

“I don’t give a fuck about you!” Bucky explodes, and…

Steve’s face shutters.

Oh no.

No, no, no. Bucky is terrible.

“Alright, Buck,” Steve says. He presses his lips together. (That’s the face he makes when he’s making himself not cry.)

Oh no, no. Bucky is horrible and rotten and the worst. He goes into the bathroom and slams the door closed in Steve’s face because he can’t look at it anymore or he’ll break a rule.

He crawls into the bathtub because it’s the perfect size for a body.

It’s cold. Nice. He presses his forehead into the ceramic wall of the tub.

He loses time.

When Bucky comes back, there is gray light coming in through the window.

No, no. Not good.

He scrambles up and looks at his hands. Is there blood? Blood under the nails?

No, his hands are clean. Maybe he washed the blood off, but they’re clean now. Chest hurts. He’s suffocating to death.

(At least if you suffocate, you won’t be able to kill Steve)

Yes, that’s right.

Check the hands for blood. Dig under the nails.

No blood.

Bucky gets out of the bathtub and looks into the sink, then the shower, then the edges of the floor. No blood. (The blood always gets between the tiles.)

Between the tiles: no blood.

Maybe he cleaned it. He could have killed Steve and cleaned up all the blood and hidden the body in the big trash cans outside.

Dr. Maribel would say: let’s think about how realistic that thought is. Does that seem very likely, somewhat likely, or not likely at all?

The answer is: somewhat likely.

The head hurts. The breathing is hard.

No getting upset. Don’t break the rule. (“God, what a fuckin’ pussy!” “Give it a good kick in the guts, that’ll shut it up.”)

Bucky is breaking the rule. He cannot go to Steve’s room like this. Have to wait. If he goes outside now, Steve will know he is upset and he’ll get a kick in the guts.

Wait.

Not right. No punishment, he said. Steve promised. (But Steve does tell some lies, you know)

Bucky slips down the hall. No getting upset.

The door to Steve’s room is already open a little. It’s not breaking the rule too much if he only touches it gently. Don’t push too hard.

The door opens a little more. Bucky can see inside.

It’s just Steve, sleeping in the bed.

Bucky is breaking the rules, but he goes inside anyways. Steve promised. If he does a punishment, then he’s told a lie, and if he’s told a lie then Bucky will run away in the middle of the night without telling. He promised he would tell, but Steve promised no punishments. An eye for an eye. When Steve threatens a punishment, Bucky will stay very quiet though it all – no crying, no yelling – and then he’ll get his revenge when he runs away in the middle of the night.

That is the plan.

In the bed, Steve is sleeping on his back when an arm flung over his head.

Bucky is so quiet that Steve doesn’t wake up until he’s already climbing into the bed. This is breaking the rules. One: getting upset; two: walking around outside his room; three: approaching without permission. Bucky is bad, bad, bad.

“Buck?” Steve is very sleepy and warm.

The blankets are nice. Steve’s hand on his normal arm is so nice. The best. Bucky moves Steve’s arm around his shoulders and curls up into his chest.

It’s better than he deserves.

“Y’okay, Bucks?” Steve mumbles, pulling the blankets up around them.

Bucky is cocooned in the blankets. Steve’s hand is in his hair; very, very nice. He’s a terrible, rotten thing and Steve asks Are You Okay.

“I’m bad,” Bucky confesses.

Steve holds him closer. So good. He asks, “What do you mean?” He sounds worried.

Because Steve is so good, he doesn’t understand. People like that can’t get a handle on the bad right in front of their faces. That is not Steve’s fault.

When Bucky doesn’t answer, Steve lets him get away from the question. He’s golden sunshine good. The best kind. A lot of people are good, but even within all the layers of good, Steve is the best kind.

Bucky loses time.

No, not losing time. Sleeping.

He opens his eyes. Approximately one hour has passed. He was sleeping.

Next to him, Steve is awake but lying still, eyes closed; pretend sleeping. His hand is still in Bucky’s hair; good. Steve is not very good at pretend sleeping because his hand is moving a little.

“Have a nice nap?” Steve mumbles. He tries to take his hand away, but Bucky grabs his wrist and puts it back.

Bucky doesn’t answer, so Steve says, “Wanna find something to eat?”

“Okay,” Bucky says, but he will probably not eat anything.

  
  


Steve asks questions non-stop – does Bucky want to go to the grocery store, is it okay if Sam comes over, will he write down what he wants from the store – until Bucky starts ignoring him. He takes out his books and stares at the pages, flipping them occasionally. Then, Steve gets fed up with him and leaves.

When Steve gets back, he acts like nothing ever happened. But he starts making announcements instead of asking Bucky questions.

He’ll say: I’m going to the store; and Bucky can just nod his head and Steve will leave the apartment.

But the problem with that is: Bucky does not know what Steve will buy at the store.

That is: not very good. But not as bad as having to go to the store.

Steve’s Friend Sam has a machine called a Switch that he brings over to the apartment. He puts the picture on the TV screen so they can play games. The best one – as far as Bucky’s concerned – is a chef game where you have to work together to make food. If Sam doesn’t chop the tomato fast enough or Bucky isn’t paying attention to the frying pans, then they both lose.

Steve cannot play this game because he gets too serious. If Sam and Bucky are going a little slow, he gets mad and says, “We were only twenty points away from three stars.”

So, Steve isn’t allowed to play.

Bucky likes Sam because he acts normal when he comes over, like Bucky is a regular person. He teases Bucky because he’s not scared.

If they do lose the cooking game – which they do, increasingly so as they get farther – Sam just groans and puts his forehead against his controller and says, “One more go?”

Sam invites Bucky to go outside, too. Bucky always turns him down, but he keeps asking; not regularly enough to pester, just enough to let Bucky know that the offer still stands. Sam is really good.

  
  


Submerged in the bath, Bucky leans his head back into Steve’s scrubby hands. They’ve been on the balcony and it is spring but it’s still winter-cold outside. Actually, Bucky went out onto the balcony on his own and Steve went out to make him come inside.

Steve has the good smelling shampoo in his hands and he’s sitting in a chair he dragged in here, scrubbing it into Bucky’s hair. His sleeves are rolled up, but he still gets water and soap on himself because he is not very careful.

Steve puts a slippery hand at the back of Bucky’s head and scratches the nape of his neck. And his finger swipes at the suds behind Bucky’s ear and it feels better than anything else in the whole world. There are goosebumps all down Bucky’s arms even though the water is about a million degrees.

See? This is why he can’t have sex with Steve. He wishes he could just try having sex once – and maybe do it, maybe give up – and then change his mind and go back to normal. But that is not the way it works. If you start having sex with someone, then you keep it up until you break up or you die. You don’t get to have nice baths and just have your hair washed or have nice naps with his hand rubbing your back.

Everything becomes about sex. That is the way it works.

Bucky knows this because he has had sex with a lot of people; and during the war, he had sex with Steve. They hardly had time alone together because people were Not Accepting back then, but when they did, they were always having sex.

If Bucky could have a talk with Past Bucky, he would say: hey pal, I know you really want to have sex with Steve but please do not do that because you will ruin him, and I will not be able to have nice things with him in the future without thinking about you having sex with him.

That would be mission failure though, because a lot of people told Past Bucky not to have sex with Steve and he did it anyways. He didn’t care. He was terrible and selfish and he didn’t care about anything because he knew he was going to die.

“Rinse,” Steve says. Right. He’s been scrubbing the shampoo into Bucky’s hair forever.

Bucky grabs the showerhead with the tube that connects it to the water, flashing it over his head to clear out the soap.

This is the thing: Bucky is supposed to be doing things for himself. He knows that because Dr. Maribel told him, and she also told him that she gave Steve a referral to talk to someone about what in the hell to do about Bucky.

Steve is good, so he will try to listen to the doctors; but Steve is also easy to trick.

Bucky pretends like he’s putting the conditioner in his own hair. He tries to rub it in with only his human hand even though there is no reason for that, and Steve says, “Come here.”

Good.

Steve’s nails scratch against Bucky’s scalp; not hurting scratches, but nice ones. It’s so nice that Bucky feels like he could sleep. He closes his eyes. If he really tried to sleep, he might drown.

No, unlikely. Water in the nose wakes you up real good.

After a count of ten, Bucky leans away from Steve’s hands and rinses out his hair. The water is getting cool and it’s time to get out. Cold water is no good.

Steve puts out a towel and a fresh change of clothes before he leaves Bucky alone.

  
  


Natasha comes to visit Steve. They do not play games together because for one, Natasha does not have a Switch; and two, Bucky does not know Natasha that well. He once knew a little child named Natalia, but this is Natasha – she is unknown.

Steve and Natasha make something that goes in the oven. When they come noisily into the living room, Bucky drinks down the last of his iced green tea. He holds his book in one hand, looking at the words. With the other hand, he tilts his ice from side to side. Distracted. The glass is empty.

“You want some more tea, Buck?” Steve says.

Bucky looks at the glass. “Okay,” he says, giving the glass over.

Natasha is looking at him, but she is irrelevant. He flips a page.

Steve comes back and gives him the glass. Three fourths full now.

“Thanks, Stevie,” he says. He looks at Steve’s eyes when he says it. Smile, and then be serious. Look at his lips. Blink and look back to his eyes.

Steve bends down and kisses him on the lips. Quickly, because his friend is here. He smiles.

Natasha watches, but not watching them kiss; watching Bucky. She wants him to know that she’s watching.

Whatever. This is: unimportant.

When Natasha leaves, Steve comes to sit down next to Bucky. He leans over to see the pages of his book, so Bucky slaps it shut. Like he’s been waiting all afternoon, Steve puts his arm around Bucky’s shoulder. He leans in close and even though Bucky ignores him, he presses a kiss to his cheek.

“Okay?” Steve asks.

“Yes.”

Steve leans out of Bucky’s space but keeps his arm where it is. “I need to ask you something. And I need you to answer honestly.” He does not ask if that is Okay with Bucky.

“What?”

Steve’s arm slides away, to the back of the couch. “What am I to you?”

What the fuck? Bucky is trying to have a nice evening and look at the pages of his book and Steve has to come and kiss his cheek and ask What Am I To You.

Bucky shrugs.

“No, I mean it,” Steve says, as if he didn’t obviously mean it before. “I need an honest answer from you.”

“Or else what?”

“Just–” Steve pulls his arm back to himself. He is getting mad. “Listen, am I– How about this: do you still think I’m your handler?”

Bucky says, “Probably not.”

Silence.

“Probably not.” Steve’s voice is flat and dead. So, that was not the right answer.

“No,” Bucky scrambles, “you’re not my handler.”

“Why’d you say that then?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Right.”

Steve shakes his head, looking at his lap. “I don’t think I believe you.” He stands up.

No! Bucky panics. “Wait.”

“No, I think you’re saying what you think I wanna hear.” His back is turned. This has gone so bad so quickly that Bucky cannot process what happened. His heart is going fast.

Steve cannot leave. But he is leaving. He’s stepping, stepping, stepping down the hall. Bucky follows him into his bedroom.

The problem is: Bucky is not heard unless something is very wrong. The doctors never get called out unless the bones are showing or his head is nodding from the blood loss. Nobody bothers to notify Alex until Bucky’s got his hands around a technician’s neck.

The good thing is: Steve does not require that much.

Bucky thinks about the time Zola showed him the newspaper with Steve’s obituary splashed across the front page like a baseball score. He thinks of the kitten he rescued as a child, and that he later found stiff with death in the box he had so carefully put together. And Bucky’s eyes start to sting.

“Steve,” he says; pathetic.

Steve turns to him. His face changes. “Aw, Buck, don’t– I’m not mad at you.”

“I didn’t mean that stuff.”

“That isn’t something you can take back. I’m– Sometimes I just don’t know what’s going on in your head, Buck.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say. He’s just going to answer wrong again. He always has the wrong answers. “Sorry.” His voice cracks.

“Bucky,” Steve sighs. Bucky tries to grasp for his hand and Steve lets him. “Okay, you explain to me why you said that then. Okay? I need an honest answer though.”

He bites back I Don’t Know. That is definitely a wrong answer. Bucky puts Steve’s hand on his face, pressed into his cheek. Steve’s breath hitches. He moves his thumb across Bucky’s cheekbone.

Bucky takes a long breath in, and when he exhales, he gives Steve the awful, humiliating truth that even weeks worth of therapy homework papers cannot fully take from his sickened brain. “I don’t think Hydra was that bad to me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I don’t want to talk about that. I’m only saying it because that’s why I still…I still sometimes have this…” Bucky takes Steve’s hand from his face and studies each of his fingers. “I know that you’re not my handler. I do, okay? I’m not stupid. But sometimes…If you were my handler – I know you’re not – but if you were, then that idea is right. That Handlers aren’t that bad to me. And Hydra wasn’t that bad to me.”

Steve is hardly ever scared, but he sounds a little scared when he says: “Why would you want that idea to be right?”

Bucky can’t stand Steve looking at him and he thinks he’s cleared his way a little bit, so he gets into Steve’s space and puts his head on his shoulder, holding his hand properly now. It’s a lot better. Steve sifts his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

Bucky can breathe normally again. “Because it was my fault.”

It’s a chain of ideas. Bucky was bad. It was his fault. Hydra did not create a bad thing, they just helped it grow. The Handlers were cruel sometimes, but not all the time. They cared about Bucky because they saw pieces of Hydra in him. They gave Bucky chances to leave, but he did not take them. He stayed in Alex’s house like a guest. Like a friend.

One idea cannot be Wrong without the next one going from Definitely Right to Probably Right, and then the whole damn house of ideas might just fall in on itself and leave Bucky with…he’s not sure. He hasn’t gotten that far.

Steve says, “No, it wasn’t.”

Bucky is tired of arguing. He doesn’t say anything. He gives up. Steve wins. Whatever.

“It wasn’t,” Steve says again, because he cannot accept an easy win. “Have you told Dr. Raza that you’re thinking this stuff?”

“Yes.”

“And what? She’s just letting you continue thinking it?”

So, the day has come that Steve is trying to start a fight with Bucky’s therapist.

“She’s not letting me do anything,” Bucky says. “She doesn’t pick what I think.”

“But you’re still talking with her about it?”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” Steve pulls Bucky’s head back from its nice, easy place and forces him to look at his eyes. “I’m being serious, Buck. I can’t just sit by when I know you’re thinking this stuff.” This is not nice or easy or safe. This is too much.

If Bucky’s head wasn’t so staticky, those fake tears from before might be real tears by now. He wants to go somewhere else, but going somewhere else is not so easy anymore now that his therapy is working more and more. He is stuck here. All because Dr. Maribel made him learn tricks and taught him not to hide away from things. But sometimes he still needs to hide away and he can’t do it properly anymore. Not without voices in his head telling him that he is Bad for trying to do such a thing. She stole that from him. She made him stay here, with his stupid homeworks and techniques and ideas about what he should do instead of going somewhere else.

“…affects you and me too then, you understand?”

Bucky has a strange feeling like he’s been responding to Steve, even though he has no idea what he’s been saying. All the threads of this conversation have slipped through his fingers. Any answer he gives now will be wrong.

One of the wrong answers comes out of his mouth. “You don’t care what I say.”

“What?” Steve is surprised. He did not expect Bucky to say something like that.

Bucky suddenly feels like he has energy again, and it’s all angry energy that makes his heart go fast and his metal hand push Steve back. “You don’t care what I have to say. You only wanna hear whatever you think the right answer is.”

“I do care about what you have to say.”

Bucky grabs Steve by the collar of his shirt and shakes him. “You don’t make the rules.”

“I know. I don’t,” Steve says, like he’s talking to a child having a meltdown. A child would probably have a better idea of their own brain than Bucky does.

“Then listen to what I say!” Bucky is yelling. He shouldn’t be yelling at Steve, but he is. “I told you what I thought and all you wanna do is tell me I’m wrong. I don’t care what you think! I don’t give a fuck, okay? Just ‘cause my brain’s fucked up doesn’t mean I don’t get a say. I do, and I say that I don’t wanna talk about this stuff, so shut the fuck up!”

Steve is stunned into silence. That won’t last long – it never does; Steve can never shut the fuck up for real – so Bucky turns and stalks out of the room.

“Bucky,” he says, following; and he says more things, too, but Bucky does not listen.

He slams his door and sits on the floor and covers his ears, muffling Steve’s banging on the door.

  
  


It is late morning. Steve is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Bucky cannot drink coffee because Hydra fucked with his stomach and he is still too weak to just get over himself and try it.

There is food already ready for Bucky. It is cold, so he puts it in the microwave and presses the buttons to make it go. He can do this on his own now without asking Steve first because Steve does not make the rules, no matter how hard he tries.

Bucky eats his food. He wishes he had his phone, but he forgot it on the nightstand and if he goes to get it, Steve will know that he wanted his phone. That is no good.

Steve sighs and puts his newspaper down. Steve is only twenty seven – almost twenty eight – but he acts a lot older. “Are we going to talk about what happened last night?”

“What happened last night?” Bucky asks, even though he knows damn well what happened.

“I’m sorry I upset you.”

See? Steve still has no idea what he did. He just makes stuff up without knowing what he’s talking about.

Bucky doesn’t say anything.

Steve says, “I should’ve dropped it when you asked me to. But I appreciate you being honest with me. About how you…your thoughts about Hydra and how they treated you. And I understand that you want to keep up this…pretense of handlers somehow being alright to you. If you’ve told Dr. Raza this stuff, then I believe you’re working on it. I just don’t want you to go on believing that it was your fault.”

“You don’t get to choose what I think,” Bucky spats, raising his voice again. That is the only way Steve will listen to him.

“I know that.” Steve runs his finger down the handle of his coffee mug. “I guess I just…I wish you didn’t think that stuff.”

Bucky shrugs. “Good for you. I don’t care.”

Steve doesn’t yell. He just looks sad. This is Bucky’s fault.

“As long as you know deep down that I’m not your handler,” Steve says. “I wanna hear you say it again.”

He can do that. Bucky is very good at following directions. Most of the time. “You’re not my handler,” he says. He did not tell a lie.

  
  


Steve says he does not want things from Bucky, but Steve is telling lies. He wants Bucky to sleep in his bed with him; and Bucky knows this because of how Steve looks every time he will not sleep there.

This is because Steve wants to have sex with him.

Is that very likely, somewhat likely, or not likely at all? The answer is: very likely.

But Bucky will not sleep in Steve’s bed. Or: he will not sleep in Steve’s bed at the beginning of the night. Sometimes Bucky gets up in the middle of the night and goes to sleep there.

In Steve’s room, there is a small robot that plays sounds that Steve calls white noise. It has sounds like a fake thunderstorm or a ceiling fan. Whenever Bucky asks for a certain sound, Steve makes it play that one. If Bucky cannot choose, then Steve puts one on for them. So, if Bucky cannot sleep in the middle of the night, he goes to Steve’s room so he can listen to the robot.

(You are telling lies.)

It is 11:03pm. Bucky sits on Steve’s bed. Not touching. He is going to leave soon. He has seven more minutes.

Steve starts talking about something that Bucky does not want to talk about which is: the U.S. Attorney. Elliott and Simon – the lawyers who are the reason Bucky is not in jail – made a deal with the devil and what they bargained was Bucky’s brain.

The U.S. Attorney wants to know what’s in Bucky’s head so that their team can put the Hydra Defendants in jail instead of Bucky. But that means Bucky has to go to their office building and tell them things. He’ll probably have to look at more pictures or tell them about the inside of Alex’s house. Then, their lawyers can go to trial and say: there’s no way he could have known that unless your defendant was his Handler! It’ll be the smoking gun, Elliott said.

Alex is dead, but in the United States of America, being dead does not stop you from getting sued.

Steve says, “It won’t be for a while.” He doesn’t want to go to the U.S. Attorney’s office either, but Bucky would bet that he wants to go even less than Steve does. “I’m gonna make them keep the sessions short, too.”

Bucky will leave in five minutes.

“Okay.”

Steve didn’t say if he could stay in the meeting with Bucky or if Bucky would be alone with the lawyers. If Steve can’t be there, then maybe they’ll let him bring Dr. Maribel. And if they don’t let him have her either, well then it might be time for Bucky to start playing up until they do.

“Would it help if I got the questions – or the topics – beforehand? I’m not sure how much they’ll give us, but at least you’d have an idea of what you’re walking into.”

“Yes,” Bucky says. He does not care about knowing things beforehand. He has three and a half more minutes. He does not want to talk about the U.S. Attorney anymore.

Bucky takes Steve’s chin in his hand and Steve goes gentle; soft eyes, letting Bucky turn his face. He wants to make Steve be like this all the time. Bucky leans in and gives him a kiss on the lips; and then Steve smiles like the morning sunshine after a long, cold night, so Bucky kisses him again.

Steve’s eyes open slowly, like he’s waking up and brand new. “I missed you,” Steve says. “You know that?”

Ugh, Steve is so dumb. How could Bucky not know it, when it pours out of his eyes like that?

“I know,” Bucky says.

————— ⍟ —————

Bucky yawns himself awake, stretching his arms above the arm of the couch. He scratches at his chest and turns his head to Steve. “Why did we mess around and then stop?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said we messed around when we were kids, then we stopped, then we started again in the war. Why?”

Recently, Bucky’s questions are less did this happen and more why did this happen, and it makes Steve uneasy. He’s happy to answer factual questions all day, but whys are something else. He settles on: “Why do you think?”

“You didn’t want to?” He guesses.

It’s funny in a terrible way; Buck’s hit the nail on the head while being completely off base. “I think we both thought the other didn’t want to.”

“You wanted?”

“Buck,” he levels with him, “of course I wanted to.”

“Hm,” Bucky says mysteriously.

“What?”

He raises an eyebrow at Steve. “Wanted.”

Wanted – past tense – would’ve been the God’s honest truth about a month ago; the thought of doing anything with Bucky without his consent makes Steve’s blood run cold. But now that Bucky’s getting better…?

Bucky’s still waiting on him, Steve realizes. So, he says, “I don’t want to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

“That’s not a good answer.”

“Yeah, well it’s the only one I’ve got.”

  
  


As April rolls around, Bucky starts wearing clothes that Steve has never seen before. It’s still nowhere near warm enough to be changing out the winter closet for the summer one, but that doesn’t seem to deter Bucky one bit. He drives their heating bill up just to lounge around the apartment dressed like it’s the middle of July.

The heat wakes Steve up, sweaty and twisted up in the sheets. It’s probably 40 outside and 90 in his bedroom. He closes his door, cracks a window, and crawls back into bed.

When Steve get up, he finds Bucky awake and fully dressed – rare for this time of morning. He’s wearing a white tank top and red shorts; they barely reach his mid-thigh. Jesus, Steve’s gonna have to make coffee and have breakfast and go about his day in…this.

“It’s a little warm in here, Buck,” he says, putting the coffee on.

Bucky is leaning against the kitchen island and sipping lemonade like he’s on the beach. He pushes himself up to sit on the counter. “What’s for breakfast?” He asks.

Bucky’s metal finger taps a random, distracted pattern against his thigh. The movement of it catches Steve’s eye and then he becomes distinctly aware that the little white bow on the front of Bucky’s shorts is very loosely tied. His metal fingers roll the little string between them; smooth, easy.

“Are we eating or not?” Bucky’s head is tilted; he’s annoyed.

Steve clears his throat. “Yes. Yeah. We’re…we’re eating.”

It is the middle of April and Steve is sweating; and it could be Bucky but more likely it’s the fact that his apartment is a fucking sauna.

“Let’s turn down the thermostat a little, okay?”

Bucky glares at him. “I don’t like the cold.”

The thermostat stays where it is.

  
  


Steve always keeps a few tabs open on his laptop; they show him recipes that are easy to make. Truth be told, Steve does not really know how to cook. He never cooked too much for himself before Bucky moved in. So, most of their meals are Steve’s first attempts at different things.

Bucky either doesn’t care or doesn’t realize that Steve is making things up as he goes along. As long as Steve leaves out the forbidden ingredients, Bucky’s fine to eat anything that gets put in front of him.

While Steve stands over the crock pot, a chicken noodle soup recipe on his phone, the front door opens and closes quietly. He probably wouldn’t have even been able to hear it without the aid of the serum.

Sure, Steve’s glad that Bucky goes out on his own now, but he doesn’t get why he feels the need to sneak around while he does it.

Bucky comes into the kitchen, leans over Steve’s shoulder, then backs off to lean against the counter with his phone.

“Where’d you go?” Steve asks.

Bucky shows Steve his phone screen, displaying Google image results of men with their hair in little buns on the tops of their heads. “Can you do it like this?”

“You’re really supposed to be doing this stuff yourself,” Steve says distractedly. He double checks the rosemary and thyme proportions, then loses the motivation to retrieve the measuring cups and sprinkles in as much as he wants.

“No, I’m supposed to do stuff that I can do for myself,” Bucky says. “I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

Bucky holds up his metal hand. “This one gets the hair caught in it.” He waves his fingers, making the plates ripple. Then, he points into the crock pot. “I’m not hungry.”

“You will be by dinnertime. It’s gonna cook in here ‘till then.”

Bucky holds up his phone again. “So, can you do this?”

“Yeah. Find me a hair tie.”

  
  


The worst part about Bucky’s temperature preferences is coming back from jogs. Steve comes in, his skin already radiating heat.

Taking exclusively cold showers cuts off any chance Steve ever had at some actual alone time. Sure, he could jerk off in his bedroom like a normal person; but there’s the matter of his abnormally attractive best friend – former…lover? – who happens to have no boundaries to speak of and who cannot be kept back with locks.

While Bucky sleeps in, Steve turns the heat down to a respectable warm and slips into the shower. He’s fully hard before he can even get a hand on his cock.

It’s been so goddamn long; fucking forever of Bucky stretching out on the couch in low-cut tank tops and rolling around in his sleep so his shorts ride up. God, Steve will dream of those red shorts. He wonders if Bucky ever works himself like this. Bucky touching himself with slow hands; sucking on his metal fingers till the spit slips down the length of them; sliding his hand past the waistband of those shorts and over the deep V of his hips.

Steve bites down on the back of his hand and he comes to the picture of Bucky, sweaty and fucking up into his own metal fist.

Afterwards, Steve feels guilty. Not like getting off at the thought of Bucky Barnes is a new thing for him; but then again, neither is Steve feeling guilty about it.

  
  


Bucky slips into Steve’s room in the dead of night and creeps towards the side of the bed.

“I’m hungry,” Bucky whispers.

Steve rolls onto his back and doesn’t open his eyes. “Whaddyou wanna eat?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s late and Steve is tired and he wants to say: well, fuck, neither do I so just go pick something for yourself because I’m not indulging this anymore. But he can’t say that, so he goes for: “Are you choosing, or am I?”

Like Steve predicted, Bucky says, “You.”

“Alright go get the…there’s more of that chicken and rice you had for lunch. That okay?”

Bucky nods and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Steve falls asleep before he can hear the microwave start up.

  
  


In the middle of the night, Steve startles awake without knowing why. Then, he sees Bucky’s silhouette in the doorway. Sinking back, Steve says, “Have a dream?”

“Yes,” Bucky says. He steps carefully into the room and Steve shifts over, stretching an arm out across the bed. Bucky climbs in. “You want to know what I was dreaming.”

“Only if you wanna tell me,” Steve says, sleepy.

It’s so fucking hot in here. With Bucky in the bed, his side turns sticky with sweat where they’re touching, but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind. Steve kicks off the single sheet he’d been covered in.

Tracing a strange pattern on Steve’s chest, Bucky says, “The mission support took me to Alex’s house. We didn’t usually go there but this time we did. Then, Alex gave me real food – some cake from his niece’s birthday. That was a reward.” Bucky cranes his neck to look at Steve, like he’s trying to prove something; look, he was kind to me sometimes.

It’s disgusting. Steve nods, encouraging. “So, it was a good dream?”

Bucky shakes his head. “It made me puke. But that was against the rules.” He doesn’t explain what that means; he doesn’t have to. Bucky would’ve been beat on and screamed at and subjected to whatever else Pierce saw fit, without even the medical attention from the Hydra doctors. All for a piece of fucking birthday cake that Pierce knew damn well would make him sick.

For all the evil Pierce did, he never laid a hand on his wife or kids, and Steve’s got a theory that that’s where Bucky came in. Pierce didn’t have to take out his stress or anger on his family; with a phone call, he could get his personal human punching bag delivered straight to his doorstep like a goddamn gift-wrapped package.

Steve breathes in and out. Bucky has never told him about a dream before, and Steve has to bite down on the blind rage that he feels so that Bucky might open up again.

To make matters worse, he’s suddenly hit with the memory of Bucky’s first day at the Tower, back when Buck still believed Steve was his handler. Tony had gotten food from the restaurant downstairs, Bucky had thrown it all up, and then Steve had barged into his room to check up on him. Jesus, Bucky must’ve been sure he was about to be punished. Steve sometimes wishes he could call up Dr. Raza and say: can you talk to him about this next time because I don’t know what the hell to say and I’m pretty sure I might be fucking up his thinking processes even more so please – as the only other person he’ll listen to – undo the damage.

Steve reflexively runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, almost roughly. The back of his neck is damp. “That is…it’s not okay, Buck. What he did to you is not okay. He knew damn well that you were gonna be sick. That’s not a reward.”

“I know that,” Bucky whispers, but knowing and accepting are two different things and Steve doesn’t think Bucky has fully accepted that Pierce didn’t have a good cell in his body. Evil people can do kind things, but Bucky never saw any of that. Quietly, he adds, “I’m not stupid.”

“I know. Look, I know you don’t need to be told this stuff. I just–”

Abruptly, Bucky asks, “Was I jealous of Peggy Carter?”

“A little, I think.” The turn of topics almost shocks Steve into calming down. Almost.

"Why a little?"

Without knowing why they are talking about this, Steve says, “Cause I was… I liked her. Liked her a lot.”

“No,” Bucky says, frustrated like he gets when Steve doesn’t follow his questioning. “Why only a little jealous?”

“Oh. Well, you knew she wasn’t gonna take your place.”

Bucky says, “I don’t remember.” But what that really means is: tell me more.

So, Steve does. “I could’ve married her and she woulda never taken your place. Nobody ever could.” Steve curls a hand around the back of Bucky’s head and presses a hard kiss to his forehead.

Bucky pulls away from him after that, laying on his back with Steve’s arm under his neck, staring at the ceiling. “Even now?”

“Yes,” Steve promises. “Even now. For as long as I live.”

Bucky folds his hands together on his chest, tapping a thumb against his ribs.

“Do you believe me?” Steve asks. “When I say things like that.”

“This time, yes.”

“But other times?”

Smoothing the sheet against his stomach, Bucky says, “Sometimes.”

Steve slides over in the oppressive heat of the bed, takes Bucky by the chin, and Bucky goes along with it when Steve kisses the corner of his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I've decided this is going to be 4 chapters instead of 3. Also, yes, I know the Nintendo Switch didn’t come out until 2017 and yes, this fic takes place in 2014. But if the MCU has intergalactic pagers and helicarriers, I think they could develop the Switch a few years earlier.

Bucky likes to think about sex more than he likes to do something that might lead to sex. If he was going to have sex with anyone, it would be Steve; he’s sure of that. He’s also sure he doesn’t want to have sex with Steve right now. Maybe for a while. Maybe forever.

It’s very easy to get Steve worked up. The hot weather makes it easier, but the easiest is always the question game.

Bucky will ask, “Was I the first person who ever got you off?” And Steve will turn pink and fidget and try too hard to be casual with his answer.

It’s great – really fuckin’ gorgeous – so Bucky keeps right on doing it.

They’re sitting on the couch watching a show. Bucky’s got his foot on Steve’s thigh; his heel is warm from the touch. Bucky asks, “Did I fuck you or did you fuck me?”

Steve glances at Bucky; very still. Steve cannot say that he won’t answer because he doesn’t know if Bucky remembers this stuff. But Bucky does remember – mostly – so if Steve tells a lie, Bucky will know. “I usually topped,” Steve says.

He hasn’t told a lie. And he teaches Bucky new words.

No, not new words; just words that don’t come to Bucky’s head so easily anymore.

“Usually,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, usually. Not always.”

Ah, there it is. Steve looks at Bucky and his face doesn’t look all that different but his cheeks are pink and Bucky knows that he’s remembering about them. Whatever Bucky talks about, Steve has to remember. Even if he doesn’t want to, he’ll be thinking about it anyways. He’ll be wishing he could do it again.

This is good. “What percent is usually?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, Buck. S’not like we kept a damn calendar.” He’s getting fed up with Bucky because Bucky is All Talk. Bucky makes Steve remember stuff that he won’t give him anymore, and Steve is so good that he keeps allowing it. He gives in; it’s too easy. “Maybe eighty…eighty five percent. I don’t know.”

Bucky cannot tell if this is a lie because he is missing pieces, but it doesn’t sound like one. Steve takes his hand off Bucky’s ankle and runs it through his own hair. When he goes to put it back, he hesitates, glances over at Bucky, then decides: yes, he can touch Bucky’s ankle.

This is so good; Bucky cannot give it up so soon, even though he has to reach for another question. “Did you top with other people or just me?”

Steve sighs. There’s a sad little smile on his face.

“Bucky, I’ve never had sex with any men but you.”

No. No! He knows that cannot be the truth. “You said the guy in the future.”

Steve Rogers messed around with Bucky Barnes when they were kids, but he did not lose his virginity to him. That was some dame that Bucky cannot – and doesn’t care to – remember the name of. Steve had all kinds of sex with Bucky in the war and after he got to the future, he had sex with a man in Colorado who best stay there if he knows what’s good for him.

“There was no topping and bottoming,” Steve says.

Oh no. Bucky has pushed this too far.

He wants to go and kiss the corner of Steve’s sad mouth, but it will seem like he wants sex and he does not. Ugh. Bucky has fucked this up.

Quick! Think.

Bucky digs his heel into Steve’s thigh, slouching back. “In Colorado, right?”

“Yeah.”

Like he’s grumpy, Bucky mutters, “Better stay in Colorado.”

Steve smiles; a happy one this time. He thinks it’s funny when Bucky is jealous.

This is good.

  
  


It’s the first time Bucky will go outside to his therapy appointments. At first, Dr. Maribel said she would only come to Brooklyn for a few weeks, but Bucky is not dumb; he can negotiate.

Dr. Maribel wanted him to go outside, so he started going to the coffee shop – and then to the art store, then to Target – and in exchange, she continued coming to the apartment. That is because going to the other places is easier than going to therapy outside. But she doesn’t know that.

So, now it is the first week of June.

Steve drives him in the car and says he’ll wait outside. He offers to walk Bucky in, but Bucky is not that useless. He can walk in by himself.

Dr. Maribel asks him about how he feels being outside and how are things in Brooklyn. Very normal. Then, she asks him if there is something new that’s bothering him.

By her voice, she already knows the answer. Bucky is caught.

“Sometimes I’m mean to Steve,” he confesses. That is the truth. He knows it; Steve knows it, even though he pretends like he doesn’t. This is okay to say to Dr. Maribel because she cannot tell anyone else because that would be illegal and she would lose her job.

“How so?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, there must be a reason you said that,” she says. She never lets him say I Don’t Know; he doesn’t even know why he tries it anymore. “Do you feel like you say unkind things to him? Are you physically aggressive towards him?”

Bucky shakes his head against that one. No, no way. “I say unkind things to him.”

“And does this happen when you’re mad or at any time?”

“I guess any time.”

“Do you have any ideas about why you might do that?”

“No.” That is not a lie.

“Hm. Do you think you might push Steve a little more because you know he’ll forgive you?”

Bucky runs his finger along the rim of his bottled tea. “I guess.”

Dr. Maribel thinks about that and then she says, “It’s good that you’re feeling more secure in this relationship. When we first started talking, you weren’t so sure about it. That’s some real progress.”

Bucky groans. He does not want to hear this.

“Alright, alright,” she says; an amused smile, head tilted forward. She is interested. Bucky is interesting. “But what I was going to say is: just because you feel comfortable that Steve will forgive you, that doesn’t mean you should make him. You said that you sometimes speak unkindly to Steve. How would you feel if one of his friends spoke to him that way?”

Unexpectedly, Bucky feels very mad. “I would kill them all.”

“Bucky.”

He slouches in his chair and recites, “I would feel very angry with them.”

“Then I think you know what that tells you about this behavior.”

He gets it. He is bad. He needs to stop.

  
  


Steve tells Bucky that they will go to Target, and then all he wants to do is hang around in the food section even though he knows Bucky does not like the grocery store. They’re practically at the grocery store! Steve is not telling lies, but he’s kind of telling lies by not telling the whole truth. When he said they were going to Target, buying food was not what Bucky had in mind or else he would not have come along.

So, Bucky wanders off without telling Steve where he is going.

Some people know who Bucky is because the Hydra files are public; that includes some of the Winter Soldier files. But he also has a sleeve for his metal arm that makes it look like a real human arm. That helps a bit. If Bucky is alone – like when he wanders off in Target – no one can really tell it’s him. It’s only if Steve is there that people start to turn their heads at them.

Target has all kinds of red, white, and blue stuff. Half-circle flag doormats and starry disposable plates. A shirt for little boys with Steve’s shield, cracked and scratched because that is apparently cooler.

This store wasn’t like this last time Bucky was here. Where do they get all this _stuff_ from?

Bucky does not even know where he’s going until he sees a sign saying Electronics. They must have better things than food there.

The Electronics section has a bunch of good things to buy, like headphones and speakers and games for Sam’s Switch. This is probably more games than Bucky has ever seen in his life; rows and rows of colorful square packages. He picks one up.

It’s got the Mario character on it, driving on a path that’s turquoise and golden orange and something that Bucky somehow names _fuchsia_. Steve told him that, maybe.

“There you are.” Steve’s got a bunch of food in his cart. They have cold things now, which means they have to leave very soon. Leaning on his cart, Steve says, “What’s that?”

“A Switch game.”

“You want it?”

Ugh. Steve does not understand how games work. “No, you can’t play them without a Switch.”

“Then get a Switch.”

Oh my god Steve really does not understand how games work. “I can’t. They’re expensive.” Since the Switch only came out a few months ago, Sam says they’re going to cost $300 for a while. Maybe in a few years, they’ll be cheaper because by that time, they’ll be Old News.

“Do you want one?”

“I can play on Sam’s.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Steve is bending down and looking at the Switchs behind their little glass case so people can’t steal them.

“Steve,” Bucky hisses, “I cannot get a Switch.”

“Why not?”

“Okay, because they’re $300 and I don’t have any money.” Bucky has money but it’s not in his hands yet. All Bucky has is the promise of future money from the U.S. Army and some settlements with the Hydra Defendants. Future money is not real money.

“Sure, you do. You have my money.” Steve cranes his neck to look around over the tops of the aisles. He is tall enough to do that now. “Watch this, will you?” He leaves Bucky with the cart.

That was a trick. Now Bucky has to stay here because he’s supposed to be watching the cart.

Steve comes back with a Target worker and asks them to open the case. Steve is fucking crazy. They are not buying a Switch. Bucky tells him so.

“Why not, Buck?”

Okay, Steve has lost the fucking plot. He balks when they have to pay more than about $7 for parking. He gets annoyed with Bucky when he wants to order food in because the delivery fees are $4. They are not buying a Switch.

Bucky tells him again, “They…are… _$300_.”

Steve has a Switch in his hands. Very polite, he smiles at the Target worker and thanks them and probably makes their goddamn week.

“Get your game,” Steve says, “or you’re not gonna have anything to do. I’m not spending $300 for you to sit around looking at it.”

“You’re not spending $300 at all.”

Steve reaches over and grabs the Mario game that Bucky was looking at, tossing it into the cart. Then, he picks up games at random to look at their cases, gathering a few in his hands.

“Steve, quit it.” But Steve ignores him and drops his handful of games into the cart. They clatter all over in a giant mess. Steve is terrible at organizing his cart. He just piles everything up with no regard for squishy breads or melty ice creams.

He stops picking up new games and starts steering the cart around Bucky, to the end of the aisle. “Well, hurry up and get your own games then. We have cold stuff.”

  
  


“Sam’s gonna be so excited that you’ve got your own now,” Steve says.

“Mmhm.”

The chef game is much harder without Sam. Bucky has to do all the work on his own and he’s never had to do that, so he loses the first game. That is okay. He can try again. This game gives you unlimited tries and you never lose your progress. It’s better this way. Bucky really does not like the games where you lose your progress when you mess up.

Steve is sitting behind Bucky, distracting him. “The meat is done,” he says. He always gives Bucky tips, even though he isn’t any good at this game himself so he’s really in no place to be teaching somebody else.

Bucky runs his little character over to get the meat before it starts burning and lights his kitchen on fire.

“You got bonus points on that one.” Steve’s breath is hot against his neck. He tucks his mouth behind Bucky’s shoulder like a little kiss.

“I finished it fast, so they gave me a tip,” Bucky says.

“So, you have to do all these levels over again?”

“Yeah, cause we only finished them on Sam’s Switch.”

“You can’t…I don’t know, download them or something?”

“No, Steve.”

Hanging all over him, Steve points to the screen, not touching because he knows that might mess up the game. “This guy can chop the lettuce,” Steve says. Bucky holds the Switch up and away from Steve’s hands, so he relocates one of them to Bucky’s stomach.

Those fingers have slid into him, wet with nothing but Steve’s come because they’d exhausted their usual slick and Steve had the refractory period of a goddamn rubber band and it had been so long that Bucky was about to lose it if he didn’t get _something_.

“How come we never used condoms?”

Steve goes tense behind him. “Serum won’t let me get anything.” His hand is warm and big against Bucky’s belly. So close.

He finishes the level. He got all three stars. “Not just ‘cause it felt better that way?”

Steve pushes him forward, harshly maneuvering himself to sit beside Bucky. A new level unlocks and Bucky drives his little chef van from _2-2_ to _2-3_.

“Look at me a minute.”

Bucky goes to the menu so the game will stop. He looks at Steve and because he has a lot of practice being very still, he does not fidget or squirm away.

“You remember how I told you if you want something, you can just ask? No games.”

Bucky nods. He cannot speak.

Steve puts his hand on the side of Bucky’s neck and it gives Bucky an electric shivery feeling all over his body, like all the nerves under his skin are connected to the place under his ear where Steve’s fingers are moving excruciatingly slow.

In a low voice, Steve says to him, “Is there something you want?”

Bucky shakes his head. Later, he will go to his room and think about how stupid he is. And he will squeeze a pillow between his legs until even that starts making him feel like he could come, and then he will lay very still and count the minutes before Steve’s shower turns off and wonder how many times – with his goddamn refractory period – he’s getting what Bucky wants so much.

But now, Bucky shakes his head. No, he does not want anything.

  
  


Bucky is kissing into Steve’s mouth from underneath him, his human hand – one of his human hands – stroking up their cocks. It’s unreal.

Smiling, Steve shushes him; face flushed, lips spit-shiny red. “Tent’s not soundproof, Buck,” he says, taking his own dick from Bucky’s grip. But they’re not in a tent. Bucky can see the walls of Steve’s quarters beyond his head, cast in a dim yellow light.

It makes sense, though. A tent; Bucky doesn’t question it.

“Ready?” Steve asks, and Bucky nods because he knows somehow that he cannot speak. Steve slides into him, lubed up and ready as if he’s been prepping for hours. They haven’t done this in forever. Bucky moans, clenching down on Steve’s cock, and Steve leans in and says, “Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”

All Bucky can feel is the slick slide between his legs and Steve’s fingers, tight in his hair, pulling his head back. His cock dribbles onto his stomach, pulsing and frustrated. He reaches down to take the pressure off.

“No,” Steve growls, grabbing Bucky’s wrist and holding his hand away. “You know the rules, Bucky,” he chastises. His fingers are tight against the soft, pale pulse of Bucky’s wrist. “You’re gonna come like this or you’re not gonna come at all.”

Bucky wakes up in 2014. He has slept in.

He usually knows he’s asleep when he’s having those dreams. That one was different; it got him. His briefs are damp and sticky but his cock is still tight against the fabric. Even the little seam in the cotton feels agonizingly good. Bucky shifts his hips, relishing in the barely-there wet drag.

This is not allowed.

Bucky clenches his hands into fists. Fuck, he wants to touch it; he wants it so bad he can’t think about anything else.

He stays very still. No moving.

It’s really good that he didn’t sleep in Steve’s bed because he knows he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. (You could still go to him now. Go get into his bed like this. He’s so hungry to fuck you, he wouldn’t even question it.)

No. Bucky cannot do that.

He gets out of bed quickly. He goes straight for the shower, pulls the knob to the cold side, and gets in.

  
  


About an hour later, Bucky finds Steve in the living room. Steve is reading a book. He is wearing shorts and a very tight t-shirt because it is hot outside.

So, Bucky sits down next to him and says, “When we used to fuck, did you sometimes pull on my hair?”

“Yes.” The skin of Steve’s neck is pink. Bucky wants to lick it.

“You were bossy sometimes,” Bucky says. “You told me when I could finish, right?”

Steve doesn’t answer. He’s ignoring now, like he can just cut off Bucky’s question game so easily. Stupid. Who does Steve think he is, anyways?

“Well?” Bucky says.

“Bucky, you _know_ –” He cuts off, frustrated. “Yes, okay? Yes, that’s right.” Steve is probably thinking about putting a bunched up jacket under Bucky’s back and hitting that spot that made Bucky draw blood, he bit his lip so hard. This is good.

“Hm,” Bucky says, like he’s thinking about something. Well, he _is_ thinking about something.

“What, you’re all out of questions now?”

“Yep, all out.”

“Right, well you let me know if you have any others,” Steve says. Okay, he’s getting mad. Bucky has gone a little far, he’ll admit. Fake helpful, Steve says, “You ever wanna know what position you liked to take it best or, you know, how to wash come out of the uniform, you know who to ask, huh, Buck?”

Okay. The question game might be done forever.

Bucky nods silently.

“I’m going on a run,” Steve says. It’s too late for Steve’s runs; he already went on a run this morning, but Bucky does not say that. Steve changes back into his running clothes and leaves, closing the door louder than normal.

The question game is done forever.

————— ⍟ —————

When Steve gets back from his second run – two hours later, having skipped lunch – he doesn’t see Bucky anywhere. He showers off in the coldest water he can stand; his skin feels uncomfortably hot after pushing himself in the late June heatwave.

The only sign of life in the apartment is the open balcony door. Steve can’t see Bucky through the drawn curtains and he doesn’t go out to investigate.

Instead, he throws his sheets into the laundry and empties the dishwasher. He’d planned to spend the day catching up on chores, but he tires of it quickly and gives up, resolving to finish the rest later.

Steve brought his canvases to Brooklyn with them, but he hasn’t touched them since. He brings one out and sets up in the corner of his room. It’s going to be a corner of their old block from the 30s, he decides as he starts mixing up colors. Steve doesn’t spend too long on it just yet; just enough to splotch out a few rough shapes, all in burnt orange and rusty red. Then he figures he better go make dinner – or at least act like he’s thinking about dinner.

He’s not sure if Bucky’s caught onto this yet, but Steve does not know more than a handful of recipes. He just covers his ass by keeping a whole bunch of ingredients around so that when he finds some internet instructions, he will probably have most of the right stuff to put the thing together.

Steve sits at the kitchen island and scrolls through his phone. Nothing looks good, though. The stuff he might want to make contains ingredients that Bucky claims to be allergic to – lime, Worcestershire sauce, olives, cilantro. Some of Bucky’s supposed allergies are really just things he’s always hated. The rest, Steve’s not sure he wants to know how they got added to the list.

Maybe Steve should just order in. Save himself the agony of turning on the oven or the stove in this heat.

When Bucky comes inside to scope out what Steve is doing, Steve puts his phone down and resorts to a baked spaghetti recipe he’s made before. Sure, it’s going to take a while to bake, but it’s easy for him to throw in the oven and forget about for a while.

“What are you eating?”

“I’m making baked spaghetti,” Steve says, and because Bucky is about to ask, “You can have it in an hour and ten minutes.”

“I can’t eat the long noodles.”

“I know. That’s why we’ve never had any long noodles in this apartment.”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

Steve keeps his answers – you’d know if you took one look at the short noodles on the counter right now; maybe you’d know if you spent more time helping with grocery lists and less pondering our former sex life – in his head.

Bucky stays quiet as Steve boils the noodles and throws the chopped onions into a pan. Steve’s not even sure if Bucky is still in the room anymore when he puts the finished product into the oven. But there he is, blatantly watching Steve with an unreadable look.

Steve pours himself a glass of lemonade; and when Bucky cautiously tracks his movements, he gets one for him, too.

“Did you have lunch?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“Want a snack?”

Another no.

Bucky tips his head at the oven. “I can eat that.” It sounds a little like a question; there’s something about his general speech patterns that tells Steve that he’s just _off_.

“Yeah,” Steve says, “you can.”

Bucky straightens up. “You don’t tell me that. I’m not stupid, I already know.”

“Alright, Buck.”

“You always tell me things I already know.”

“Well, you always ask things you already know the answer to.”

The look Bucky gives him is split-second surprised, then pissed off. “Why are you saying that? You don’t know anything, you’re not in my head.”

“No,” Steve says, “but I know when I’m being played with.”

Bucky tilts his drink and watches the lemonade splash up the side of his glass. Behind Steve, the oven makes a little ticking sound as it works.

Bucky says, “Can we have more drinks like this?” He pushes his nearly empty glass towards Steve; more.

“Sure,” Steve says, pouring him some more. “Just write down what you want.”

“I don’t know.”

Before he can stop himself, Steve scoffs at him. “Right,” he says, some part of him knowing he should have excused himself from this conversation a few responses ago.

Wide eyed, Bucky offers, “But I can choose? If you want.”

Steve blinks hard and turns to check the food; make sure it’s at the right temperature, that the oven timer is counting down correctly. “No.” He clears his throat. Bucky’s trying so hard. “No, that’s alright, Buck.”

Bucky comes over and fits himself between Steve and the warmed oven. He pushes Steve’s hair back, even though it’s too short to do it properly. Pulling Steve in, he rubs his back and doesn’t say anything for a while. When Bucky releases him, his metal hand snakes down to Steve’s.

“I just wish you would talk to me,” Steve says as he interlocks their fingers.

Bringing their hands up, Bucky runs a warm finger across Steve’s knuckle. “But I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know how. I just want you to try.”

Bucky lays his head on Steve’s shoulder, grasping gently as his hip with his free hand. His fingers move, random and hot against the fabric. “You’re my favorite,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“Never mind,” Bucky says, pulling back.

Steve holds tight on his hand. “No, tell me.”

“I don’t know,” he says. Bucky could get away easily if he was serious about it, but he stays, watching Steve’s chin, the sleeve of his shirt. He brings Steve’s hand up and puts it over his own chest. Bucky’s heart is going a mile a minute.

“Y’okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods solemnly, resting his head back against Steve.

Then, Steve gets it. “For me?” He takes his free hand to run through Bucky’s hair, but Bucky shoves off him and slips out of his grasp.

Snatching his glass of lemonade from the counter, Bucky takes a sip and motions to the oven. “When is it done? I’m hungry.”

  
  


Usually, on nights where Bucky sleeps in his own bed, Steve will lie around for a while wishing he hadn’t. But more and more, he’s a little glad for it.

During the war, it felt like they couldn’t share a space alone without something happening. They’d say, “No, we really can’t tonight” or “It’ll be fine, we lived together for years without doing anything.” That would turn into excuses – we deserve it though; we can be real quiet – which would turn into…well, whatever they wanted to do in the moment. He remembers Bucky with his floppy wartime hair, rolling over in the dark, whispering, “Stevie? I can’t sleep.”

It feels like they’re at that place again and that would be fine – more than fine – except Steve has no clue what’s going on in Bucky’s head.

Then, Steve hears Bucky’s footsteps coming down the hall. It’s been a few hours since he went to bed. Steve keeps sketching, not looking up until Bucky’s hovered silently in the doorway for a few seconds.

It’s immediately obvious that Bucky has been crying for a while. He swipes pointlessly at his swollen eyes, one hand still on the doorknob.

Steve tosses his sketchbook aside and scoots to the edge of the bed, beckoning Bucky forward. “Did you have a dream?” He asks, even though he thinks he knows the answer; Bucky has a lot of bad dreams, but he rarely cries and never like this.

When Bucky comes to him, Steve takes his face in both hands.

Bucky sucks in a shuddering breath. “My little sisters,” he says. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“Oh,” Steve breathes, and Bucky sees the answer. It happens so fast; his face crumples, he leans into Steve’s arms like he’s been punched in the gut, and Steve knows that he has well and truly broken Bucky’s heart. He’s sobbing in big, huffing gasps. Steve holds him and scratches his scalp while he cries. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispers, “God, I’m so sorry.”

Bucky doesn’t stop crying, even when he calms and catches his breath; and Steve would do just about anything to make him stop, except he knows that Bucky needs this.

So, he gives Bucky another minute, then pats him on the shoulder. “Let’s go get a drink.” Steve pulls away, taking his hand.

Bucky hangs back as Steve pours a glass a water and opens up the freezer, digging out a box of popsicles. Steve picks a red one without asking; red is his favorite and he’s definitely in no mood to choose something as insignificant as a popsicle flavor.

They go to sit on the couch, Bucky nestling himself between Steve’s legs. Still crying quietly, Bucky eats his popsicle and lets Steve fuss over him, wiping his cheeks clean and stroking his hair back.

Steve swipes a thumb across Bucky’s cheek and lets his hand rest there. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

“No,” Bucky mumbles. It’s as if he’s too exhausted to do anything but sit there.

Bucky throws his popsicle stick out without looking at the joke, and Steve slings his weighted blanket over a shoulder. “Where do you wanna lie down?” He asks, leading Bucky down the hall.

“Yours,” Bucky says roughly, so Steve takes them to his bed and watches Bucky climb under the covers. He slips in, pulling Bucky flush against his side, pulling the blanket up to Bucky’s neck. It’s a little too warm, even with the fan kicked up a notch and Steve’s lower body sticking out from the sheets.

With his head on Steve’s chest, Bucky takes in gasping mouthfuls of air; his nose must be too stuffed up to breathe properly. Steve taps his shoulder. “Sit up a minute.”

When he does, Steve shuffles up to sit against the headboard. He props a few pillows behind him and relaxes into them, opening his arms to Bucky.

It’s a real testament to how worn out Buck is that he doesn’t fight it even for a second. He leans solidly against Steve, keeping up that awful, weakened crying.

“Sorry.” Bucky’s voice cracks on the second syllable.

“Hey, no.” Steve swipes Bucky’s face with the hem of his shirt. “You’re alright.”

Finally, it seems like Bucky’s falling asleep. Before he drifts off, Steve says to him, “Night, Bucks.” Gets no response but Steve thinks he must have heard.

Once Bucky’s out, Steve realizes he’s not going to get much sleep sitting up like this. Or, so he thinks at first; Bucky’s snuffly breathing is really soothing. Steve fumbles for the white noise remote and turns it on. A fake thunderstorm starts up.

He opens his eyes hours later. He must’ve fallen asleep before turning off the light because the room is still bright as anything.

Bucky’s hand is pressed against Steve’s chest, holding himself away. Disorientated, he squints and shields his eyes from the light. His hair is stuck to the side of his face where the salty tears have encrusted the strands there.

Steve turns the light off and pushes Bucky’s hair back, scooting down to lay flat on his back.

Still sitting, Bucky pulls at Steve’s shirt. “Off,” he says, half-asleep.

Steve wiggles out of his shirt, dropping it somewhere; and Bucky folds against Steve’s chest and he’s asleep so fast, it’s like he never woke at all.

The next morning, Bucky gets out of bed and washes his face. And Steve stands in the doorway, inspired by all the stupid little chores that Bucky finds the energy to complete.

“Wha?” Bucky demands, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. He bends over and spits into the sink.

“Nothing.”

Bucky rinses his mouth and takes his time putting his toothbrush away, giving Steve the opportunity to sidle up next to him. “Steve,” Bucky warns. He puts a hand up between them.

“What?”

Bucky rests his hand against Steve’s shoulder, keeping him at bay. His eyes are still red and puffy; not terribly so, but it’s noticeable. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just–,” he stops, sounding like he didn’t sleep at all. Quietly, Bucky says, “Please don’t, okay?”

Steve nods. “Okay,” he whispers.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve announces he’s going to the coffee shop and doesn’t invite Bucky along, so Bucky won’t have to say no to him. He brings back an iced green tea and a lemon muffin, and in return he gets to watch Bucky curled up under his weighted blanket, carefully picking off pieces of bread as he intently watches the Australian lifeguard show.

Usually, he’d tease Buck about how seriously he takes a show about shirtless, accented guys, but the episode seems pretty serious. This show is uncomfortably real sometimes; within the span of thirty minutes, the tanned lifeguards go from pulling pranks on each other to dragging a lifeless father of two from the ocean.

Their frenzied attempts at CPR fail. One of the teenaged trainees drives their empty four wheeler back to the lifeguard tower. Steve grabs his sketchbook and goes into the dining room.

He hears the happy, summery theme song at least three more times before the TV goes quiet and Bucky comes to lean over Steve’s shoulder.

“Why are you drawing me?” Bucky asks.

He looks down at his sketch, which isn’t even close to being finished; Sketch Bucky’s body is just a mess of linework. “I dunno.”

“Come watch my show.”

“I don’t really wanna watch people drown.”

“They’re not drowning,” Bucky says.

“That one guy did.”

Bucky braces more weight against Steve’s shoulder. “People die all the time.”

“I know,” Steve says, “but I don’t find it entertaining.”

“We can watch old episodes so I can make sure no one will die.”

They end up watching the first season, which Natasha gave Bucky on an unmarked DVD. Good thing the U.S. Attorney cleared Bucky, or they’d have to add “piracy” to the list of offenses.

As Bucky promised, they’re all relatively lighthearted episodes.

Steve doesn’t feel like cooking, so he orders them delivery food that Bucky should be okay to eat. He asks Steve a million questions and then eats his dim sum very cautiously, though he’s absolutely fine. Steve doesn’t say so, but he’s sure that some of Bucky’s lingering stomach issues are in his head; he gets so anxious that he’ll be sick that he makes himself feel sick.

When Bucky goes to have a nap, Steve stretches his legs out across the couch to finish his sketch. The silence – and if he’s being honest, the break from Bucky – is welcome.

  
  


It’s nearly two hours later when he hears Bucky coming down the hall.

“I have a question.” Bucky slips onto the couch to lean over him; close and warm, casually resting his hand on Steve’s hipbone. A few fingers skirting underneath his shirt.

Oh, great. “What.”

But Bucky doesn’t answer. He bends down and presses his lips to Steve’s neck. Shit. Fucking hell, the way he dips back in for another little kiss, Steve knows exactly what he wants. For as long as Steve has known him, Bucky will hide things away inside himself until he’s about to burst and can’t handle it alone anymore; that’s how Steve knows they’ve hit that point.

“Bucky,” Steve says, shifting, putting a hand against Bucky’s chest and giving the slightest push.

Undeterred, Bucky kisses a line down his neck and to his collarbone, then he parts his lips and gives the tiniest kitten lick.

“Bucky.” Steve gets a hand in Bucky’s hair where he’s dipped down to lick and nip at Steve’s neck in earnest.

“What?” he says, and when he licks his lips Steve can feel the wet swipe against his skin.

Bucky kisses Steve’s jaw and then goes in for his lips, fingertips slipping under the hem of Steve’s shirt. The slide of cool metal, Buck’s flattened palm against his stomach. His lips are downright fucking sinful, the way he gets one of Steve’s lips between his teeth and _drags_. Steve runs his hands loosely down Bucky’s back; falling into it, just a little. Just a few more seconds.

Then, Bucky hastily grabs the hem of his own shirt, rucking it up. Steve cranes his neck to pull back. “Wait,” he says, smushed against Bucky’s lips; he’s barely giving him a break.

Bucky slings a thigh over one of Steve’s and presses in, lets him feel his hard cock through his shorts. “You said I could have anything I wanted,” he murmurs. He braces his weight back on his knees, yanking his shirt over his head in one smooth motion.

Oh, Jesus. “Bucky,” Steve groans; he meant it to be a protest, but he’s no good at denying Bucky; especially when he gets all needy and squirmy like he is, moving against Steve’s thigh like he just can’t stop himself. Bucky climbs over him and sinks down, melting into him.

All Steve’s plans to have a real chat with Bucky dissolve. Bucky is so fuckin’ crazed with it, and Steve’s been wanting this for so damn long. This is gonna happen now; no stopping it.

“Okay,” Steve concedes, and Bucky reaches into his sweatpants and grips him, running a teasing finger across the head of his cock like a brushstroke. Steve jolts. “Okay. Fuck. Let’s just– Bucky. Let’s go to the bedroom.”

“Can’t.” Bucky slips off the couch and onto the floor, pulling Steve down with him. He climbs up close, chest to chest. Takes Steve’s wrist, guiding him down and forcing his fingers around his dick so he can thrust up, whimpering.

Steve lets him have a few pumps before stopping to grip the base, leaving Bucky squirming. “Tell me what you want,” he whispers against his skin.

Bucky sucks his fingers down and reaches for Steve’s cock. He tugs it a few times, trying it out like he’s a virgin again. He knows what he’s doing, though; his hand is warm and wet, stroking down the thick length of it with his thumb pressing in just where Steve likes. Fuck, he’s wanted this all goddamn summer.

Steve’s hand twitches as he forces himself to pull Bucky back. His hips jerk up towards Bucky’s hand on their own accord. “Wait a sec,” Steve insists.

Bucky grasps anxiously at Steve, trying to pull his hand off; he could get free if he really tried, but his attempts are too scrambled. “No. No, you said– Please?”

“I will. I will, okay?” With the hand still on Bucky’s cock, he gives him another stroke, then two; he goes back to holding him at the base. “Just wanna hear you say what you want.”

“You.”

"No, I need more than that."

Bucky groans, tries to push up into Steve’s hand but Steve lets go, leaving Bucky to arch uselessly into the air. “Not too bossy?” Bucky says. “And just– not all the way yet, okay?”

“Okay. Yeah, of course.” Steve kisses his lips. “More.”

Bucky pulls gently at Steve’s hair. “Just a little pulling,” he says. When Bucky reaches for Steve’s cock again, he allows it. He gives Bucky’s a slow stroke for giving the instructions, even when he’s out of his mind with wanting.

Steve stops, waits for more. Bucky groans and says, “I don’t– I can’t, Stevie, please, I dunno.”

Steve starts pumping him for real now, barely keeping a steady pace between Bucky trying to fuck up into his fist and the blinding pleasure between his own legs.

Bucky’s breathing picks up. He watches Steve’s hand moving with rapt attention, squirming into the rug and panting. It breaks Steve’s attention; he’s damn near hyperventilating.

Steve slows his hand, cupping Bucky’s cheek and brushing the hair from his face where it’s stuck to his sweaty forehead in all his writhing around. “Hey,” Steve soothes. “Relax, relax. You still good?”

“Good,” Buck says, pushing up into Steve’s hand and when that’s not enough, manhandling Steve and crawling onto his chest.

“Tell me,” Steve urges.

In a rush, Bucky says, “’m good. Please, please.”

Steve keeps up a steady pump and watches Bucky arch his back like he’s already getting fucked. “Stevie,” he gasps.

“Right here, sweetheart.” He takes Bucky’s hand with his free one, intertwining their fingers. Steve gives him a soft, sweet kiss; that seems to help ground Bucky. He settles into eye contact instead of wildly flicking his gaze from Steve’s face to his dick to his chest.

He watches Bucky’s hot fist moving over his cock and then he gets an idea; or, he remembers something he’s gotten himself off to before. Gently, Steve takes Bucky’s metal one and guides him to Steve’s dick.

Eyes all glassed over, Bucky frowns at Steve, confused. “This one?”

“Yeah. Yeah, will you?”

The mere mental image of this has gotten Steve off more times than he can count and now it’s real, here in front of him. Bucky’s cool metal fingers wrapped around him, the plates of it slick with precome.

Bucky sees it, too. “You thought about this before?”

“Yeah.”

“Thought about it a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” Steve confesses, mesmerized by the slip of metal over the head of his cock. “I– Buck, I’ve thought about it so much.” He fucks up into Bucky’s fist to meet his strokes, pressure building. He can’t think about anything but getting _more_ ; more friction, more touch. Steve doesn’t need much more and he’d do anything to have it.

Bucky takes his free thumb and presses into Steve’s perineum. Steve has a there-and-gone curiosity about when the fuck he remembered that, and then he’s blank, spasming, helpless against Bucky’s touch. Come drips down Bucky’s metal fingers; fucking incredible.

When Steve gets his bearings again, all he can think about is how bad he wants to flip Bucky off him, throw him against the rug, get his mouth on his cock. But the way Bucky’s whimpering and grinding, wild under his hands, tells him that they’re not gonna make it that far. He pumps his hand faster instead, gives that little twist on each downward stroke that makes Bucky crazy.

“Yeah, c’mon, sweetheart,” Steve babbles. “Yeah, Buck, that’s it.”

With a desperate whine, Bucky comes all over Steve’s stomach, eyes closed and head tilted back; red-kissed lips parted and so slick that a few strands of dark hair stick there. He’s so gorgeous when he’s overwhelmed, like a fucking picture.

He looks down at Steve with his pale eyes filled and glassy, pitching forward and tucking his face into Steve’s neck. He shakes like he’s got a fever.

Steve brings both palms against Bucky’s back, sliding under his shirt that they never managed to get off. “Bucky?”

The crook of Steve’s neck is puddling wet. “Okay?” Steve whispers.

“Yeah,” he says, shattered. Steve feels his slippery mouth moving against his skin. “Thank you,” Bucky murmurs, “Thank you.”

Feeling a little weepy himself, Steve pulls Bucky back to kiss his salty face. He bunches Bucky’s shirt up and gently tugs until Bucky leans back enough to let him pull it over and off, using it to wipe them down.

When Bucky relaxes back into his chest, the skin to skin contact is damn near as good as the sex. Buck must feel it too, because he takes a big, hitching breath and flattens his flesh hand against Steve’s heartbeat. Lifting his head, he stares at Steve with big blinking eyes; his eyelashes are stuck together in dark clumps, cheeks tinged with a lingering color. Then, he looks at Steve’s lips, so Steve brings him in for a drawn out kiss.

Bucky lays back down, still draped over Steve. He’s heavy but it feels good. Steve skirts his hands across Bucky’s back and feels him melt into big, rising breaths. He shifts.

At first, Steve thinks he’s just trying to get comfortable. Then, he fidgets again, his half-hard cock sliding against Steve’s belly; and again, more deliberate.

Steve nudges Bucky until he brings his head up. He kisses him. “C’mon,” Steve whispers against his lips, pushing gently at his chest.

Dazed, Bucky takes his hand and lets Steve lead him down the hall.

————— ★ —————

Steve lets Bucky run his hands down his chest and push him backwards onto the bed. He smells so good, looking up at Bucky like he is the best thing ever.

Bucky climbs into his lap so he can feel Steve’s cock next to his. He wants to touch it so bad and now he can. With the metal hand – Steve likes that one; likes it so much he came all over it – he grabs Steve by the jaw, pushes his thumb into the heat of his mouth, and Steve takes his wrist and shoves a few more fingers in. It’s filthy. His lips are already hot and pink and raw from all the kissing they’ve been doing, and now Steve is shamelessly sloppy, sucking after Bucky’s fingers even as he pulls them away and grips their cocks, starts moving.

Steve cranes his head to watch and his lips fall open. “Bucky,” he says, like he’s completely amazed to find himself in this situation, here with Bucky sitting in his lap, thrusting up against him.

Okay, Bucky wants to hear his name like that all the time. Steve could call him anything in the world if he said it like that.

There’s sparkling pleasure in his dick where it’s pressed against Steve and the heat of his hand. Bucky gives Steve a smacking kiss on the lips.

“Gotta question,” Bucky says. Steve groans – those fucking _lips_ open and tempting – and Bucky says, “How long have you had a thing for my metal arm?”

“God, fuck, I don’t know.” Steve looks down at the hand in question. So, Bucky twists it for him, knowing it’ll make a little whirring noise and then Steve gasps like he’s never heard anything like it before in his life, and his cock beads and dribbles. “I dunno. A long time. Too fuckin’ long, Buck.” His hands are running down Bucky’s chest and arms without any real purpose; just touching. “It doesn’t bother you, does it?”

There’s a little bit of terrible doubt in his voice and Bucky wants to make it go away forever and never come back. “No, no.”

Wisps of a more serious, insistent pressure are starting to build, so he slows his hands to starve them off.

Bucky wonders if it’s a power thing, or if Steve’s just so damn hot for him that he’s developed a complex for his body.

Steve touches down Bucky’s back and sinks his fingers into the cheeks of his ass, rutting him forward. Why the fuck did Bucky make them wait so long for this! It feels slick and obscene and natural; Bucky could not have possibly waited one more day – one more minute! – for this.

Like he can see inside his head, Steve says, “I’ve wanted you so bad,” and he pulls Bucky against him, rough and so close that there’s almost no room for his hands to move anymore.

“Me too.”

“For so long, Buck,” Steve swears. “I always want you so bad.” He takes Bucky’s jaw, paradoxically gentle as he kisses, bruising and filthy, into his open lips.

“Can I suck you?” Steve asks.

“Yeah.”

Steve’s mouth is hot and slick, and Bucky can’t remember doing this too often but they must have because Steve is good at this. He flattens his tongue and swallows Bucky down, shiny pink lips wrapped around him tight. It’s almost too much at first, and then he can’t get enough. He fists his hand in Steve’s hair, hands shaking as he tries so bad not to shove up.

“Go ‘head,” Steve says, muffled around Bucky’s cock, spit dribbling down his chin. One hand is in his own lap, moving furiously. Fuck.

“Hmm?”

Steve grasps at Bucky’s hip, pulling him into his mouth. “Go,” he urges.

Bucky thrusts up experimentally, and Steve moans like it’s doing something for him, too; the vibration in the back of his throat is just about all Bucky needs. “Steve,” he warns, thrusting shallowly to try and hold off, but Steve dives back onto Bucky’s cock, taking the whole thing in his mouth. “Steve,” he says again, more urgently.

Steve hums and that’s it. Bucky grips the back of Steve’s head and pulls him in, and Steve sucks him through it, then climbs off and kneels above Bucky, fisting his own cock.

“Ah,” he gasps, and then he comes all over Bucky’s stomach.

Still milking out the last of his orgasm, Steve bends down and kisses him sweetly. Bucky is a goner; he’s never gonna be able to go without this now.

Thank God, he doesn’t cry this time. But he gets that same insatiable, irrational urge to touch Steve even though he’s been doing nothing but that for the past half hour. He manhandles Steve to him, holding him to his chest like he used to in Brooklyn. The Before Brooklyn.

Steve kisses the back of Bucky’s hand. It’s so good. Bucky ruffles his hair until he ducks his head and shoves at Bucky. He still wants to touch Steve’s hair, so he does it again, but nicer; that’s allowed.

Only a minute later, Steve starts breathing like he’s asleep. Bucky is tired, too; sleepier than he’s felt in a while. Maybe since Zola kept him awake for weeks to see what would happen.

They didn’t put their clothes back on, so all Steve’s skin is just _there_ for Bucky to touch all he wants. This is allowed now.

Closing his eyes, he runs his knuckles against Steve’s arm and puts his forehead against the back of Steve’s neck. So nice. Bucky is glad he did this.

  
  


They keep waking up and then tiring themselves out and taking more naps. Steve starts getting progressively bossier, but he does not break the rules Bucky said earlier. That is really good.

While Bucky dozes off, spent, Steve gets out of bed and disappears somewhere. Bucky doesn’t really care where he is until he returns with his insolated water bottle; he even put ice cubes in the water.

He pulls Bucky up and lets him drink hungrily from it, a finger under Bucky’s chin. After it’s empty, Steve goes to get a refill. But Bucky does not want a refill; he wants Steve to stay in the bed. Bucky does not say this. He sits up to wait.

When Steve comes back, he thinks Bucky is still awake because he wants more water and so he tries to give him some. Bucky shoves the bottle away; a little mad.

Steve frowns at the spilled water and says, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’.”

But Bucky feels shaky and raw. Is he really getting mad that Steve went to get more water? That is really stupid, if he is. It feels like he is. There’s something Wrong in him. He is _so mad_ at Steve; the crying mad.

Steve says: “You want some space?”

No! He does not want some space! The bad feeling is sinking down into his guts. Okay, he might cry soon. (Didn’t you just get done crying, you little bitch.) Bucky does not know how to fix that, so he leans against Steve. Sometimes Steve remembers more things and that lets him know of some fixes that Bucky cannot remember. For example, Bucky cannot remember ever feeling like this before in his life.

Steve rubs his back with flat hands and lets him sit quietly, wrapping a sheet around his shoulders. All their other blankets have fallen to the floor. He can see them, crumpled and tossed aside. Steve tells Bucky some nice things that Bucky pretends he did not hear.

This is: a little better. He is pretty sure now that he will not cry.

Steve gives him some more water and says, “I’m gonna turn on the white noise machine so you can have a nap.”

“You too?”

“Yeah, me too.”

Steve makes them lay down in the bed. Then, Bucky can put his head on Steve’s shoulder; touch the muscles in Steve’s chest and stomach.

“Wake me up if you need anything,” Steve says, and Bucky doesn’t remember anything after that.

Their room is getting dark when Bucky wakes. There’s dulled orange sunlight coming through the blinds and making lines on the floor and the bed. He doesn’t feel like he can go again, so he just watches Steve sleeping.

Steve’s hair is very messy. His neck and chest have a few lingering bruises where Bucky kissed him too long. He’s twisted up in the sheets that definitely need the washing machine and he still smells like sex. It’s a little gross but really, really good. Steve is beautiful like this.

Bucky feels his cock stiffening up. He thinks he was probably wrong about not being able to go again.

He wonders if he should wake Steve. That is something Bucky can do now. Pull Steve out of his routine just because he wants nice touching, or he had a bad dream, or he wants sex.

Even if Steve wasn’t there when he wanted him, Bucky thinks he could probably call him up and talk to him on the phone. He thinks about calling Steve during one of his long meetings; Steve excusing himself to the bathroom and talking Bucky through getting himself off.

Even though Bucky does want sex, he also wants something to eat. He pokes Steve in the arm.

When Steve wakes up a little more, Bucky says, “I’m hungry.”

Steve rubs his eyes. “Me too. Can we order more food? I don’t wanna make anything.”

Bucky looks at the nightstand where Steve keeps his phone, but it is not there. He gets out of bed and wanders into the living room. Finds it on the coffee table.

Phone in hand, Bucky brings it back to the bed and unlocks it – 0310. He finds the food app and starts looking at the choices.

Sleepily, Steve turns over and starts playing with Bucky’s half-hard cock. “Just want food, huh?”

Well, Bucky wants all the above. But mostly food. “Yeah.” He finds a place they’ve had before and didn’t make him sick. “Focus,” Bucky says, elbowing Steve in the chest; not rough enough to make him stop. “Or I’m not gonna buy you anything.”

“That’s my debit card.”

“I’m gonna press order.”

“No!” Steve lets go of his dick and grabs his arm, wrestling the phone away. This is a lose-lose situation. Steve gets focused on his phone and finding something to eat; not paying attention to Bucky.

Bucky starts stroking him so that he sucks in a breath and stares for too long at the same screen. Moving down, Bucky sucks light teases on the head of Steve’s cock. Takes more and more until he’s got the whole length of him in his mouth. He thought he remember this but he didn’t really; not until he got to feel Steve like this.

When Bucky looks up to see Steve’s face, he does not have his phone anymore. Bucky leans back and asks, “Did you order it?”

“Mmhm.”

Bucky goes back to work, finishes Steve off before their food arrives, and then Steve kisses him and puts his legs together, letting Bucky fuck into the tightness between his thighs. Bucky’s cock barely dribbles when he comes; it’s like it’s forced out of him.

This is really the last time. He thinks he probably cannot go again.

————— ⍟ —————

The warm summer air brushes against Steve’s face as he sketches out the wisps of a cloud. Something about the lines isn’t quite right, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Slouching in the chair beside him, Bucky hesitantly sets a foot in Steve’s lap. Steve starts rubbing his foot, so he puts his other up, too.

“I want to see stars,” Bucky says, head tilted up to the sky.

“Well, you aren’t gonna see many here. Too many lights.”

“I know.”

Steve watches him. The wisps of his hair getting blown back by the breeze. The little frown of his lips. Steve says, “We could go see stars if you wanted.”

“How?”

“We could drive somewhere.”

“Drive where?”

“I dunno. North, maybe. Just get out of the city.” Steve pinches Bucky’s foot. “You wanna go?”

He nods. They grab a few blankets and snacks and then they pile into Steve’s Jeep.

It takes them nearly an hour to escape the light pollution and by that time, they’re on little one-lane roads that probably weren’t paved until the 1980s. The other cars become fewer and fewer; not many people in rural upstate on a Thursday night.

As Steve winds through backroads, taking random turns, Bucky pours over a book in his lap. The pages are covered in stars.

“You’re a cancer,” Bucky says.

“Mmhm.”

“So, you’re a crab.”

Steve has no clue what he's talking about. “Okay.”

“I’m not sure if we’ll be able to see it because it’s most visible in March.”

“That’s okay. Do you have one?”

“Yeah, I’m a fish.”

“Can we see the fish?”

Bucky turns a page, squinting at his book. “I don’t think so because it’s most visible in early autumn. November.”

Steve comes to a crossroads. They’re surrounded by fields and probably farms or something. It’s too dark to see what lies too far beyond the headlights of their car, but from what Steve saw of America a few years back, it’s a whole lot of open sky and farmland.

“Left or right?” Steve asks.

Bucky looks back and forth, though there’s nothing to see but empty pavement and blackened air. “Left,” he says, so they go left.

Steve pulls over on an unnamed road somewhere between Brooklyn and Canada, faceless darkness stretching out around them in every direction.

The night is thick and humid. The car dings some warning at them as they unpack their blankets and snacks. Its interior lights draw flittering little bugs out from the grass, which rustles as they move around the car; little creatures scattering away from their intrusion.

They walk down the road for fifty feet or so, settling on the shorter grass beside the rocky shoulder. Steve hands Bucky his chocolate covered pretzels and opens their citronella oil, spreading some on the insides of his wrists like Natasha showed him. “Gimme your hand,” Steve says. He puts some on Bucky, too. Bug bites won’t last long on them, but Steve doesn’t want mosquitos around no matter the circumstances.

Bucky is already fixated on the sky. His twists his torso around, like he can’t decide what to look at. There are _so many_ stars.

“The longer you look, the more stars there are,” Bucky says; and he’s right. The longer Steve keeps his eyes on the sky, the more specks of light start to appear in the dark spaces. Some so dim and tiny that they must be lightyears away. Places he will never go, maybe with creatures that he will never see and who couldn’t even imagine the lives they’re living down here.

The sky fills in. Steve can’t look away.

They are so incredibly insignificant. In the big picture, they are nothing but a pinpoint in somebody else’s sky; something you won’t see unless you’re already trying hard to look.

“Makes you realize how tiny we are,” Steve says.

“Yeah.”

They look at stars for longer than Steve thought possible. He cannot tell Bucky that they should head back, not when he’s pointing things out and sharing facts that he must have gotten from his book.

“Wish I could go,” Bucky says quietly.

“You could.” Steve doesn’t bring up the wormhole that Tony flew through and how he came back shaken and nervous; how Bucky might not like what he found, if he did go to space. “You just gotta go to school for it. People do that now.”

Bucky shakes his head and doesn’t say anything.

Steve says, “There’s people up there right now, you know.”

“I know.” Bucky tilts his body to face the glowing crescent moon. “Robots, too.”

“Mmhm.”

“They live on Mars all by themselves. Isn’t that weird, Steve?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess? There’s a planet up there with only robots living on it!” Bucky glances at him, then back up. He mutters, “You guess.”

When they get back into the car, the center display blares _2:12am_ in little red lights. Bucky tosses the blankets in the back seat but keeps one for himself, pulling it up to his neck in the passenger seat.

Steve turns the AC off and the fan to a low whir. The roads – even when they start to reach civilization again – are quiet. The world is tucked into bed; Steve and Bucky might as well be the last two people in the state.

They don’t talk the whole ride back. Bucky falls asleep with his face turned into his seat and even when the radio comes back to life, Steve keeps it off. Once they start to hit traffic lights again, he focuses on braking as gently as possible. Let it never be said that Steve Rogers was incapable of being a safe driver.

Bucky doesn’t wake when Steve pulls into their garage. He goes around and opens Bucky’s door and only then does Bucky come to, looking around to gauge where he’s ended up.

The stitching of the passenger seat is imprinted red on Bucky’s cheek; Steve runs his thumb across the lines. He says, “Can I carry you up?” He’s thinking about holding Bucky against his chest, walking up the stairs and feeling the heaviness of his metal arm slung over his neck.

The real-life Bucky says, “No.” And he pushes past Steve out of the car, only letting him hold his hand as they walk up to their apartment.

Bucky barely toes off his shoes before flopping onto the bed, still half asleep; still in his jeans.

“At least take those off,” Steve tells him.

“Hm?” Bucky rolls onto his stomach and slides his hands under his pillow, getting settled.

Before he can get back to sleep, Steve goes to Bucky’s side of the bed and nudges him onto his back. Bucky keeps the pillow against his face. “Take these off,” Steve repeats, undoing Bucky’s fly and pulling his jeans off. It’s not all that easy when Bucky isn’t helping in the slightest.

Some muffled sounds come from Bucky’s pillow.

“What?” Steve says. He slings the jeans and his own pants into the hamper.

Bucky pulls the pillow up just enough to reveal his mouth, pressing it into his nose and eyes. “Can I–…I’m tired,” he confesses.

“Then take that pillow off your face and go to sleep.”

Bucky yanks the pillow away. He pops up on his elbows and stares at Steve, so tired that he’s blinking slow and dazed. “I can sleep?” Bucky asks. “Right now?”

“What? Yeah, of course.” Steve reaches behind his neck to pull his shirt off, tossing that in with the rest of the laundry and pulling on a soft sleep shirt. When he turns back, Bucky is lying on his stomach again, his head turned to the side. Steve can tell by his breathing that he’s not really sleeping. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Dunno,” Bucky mutters.

Steve turns out the lights and climbs into his side of the bed, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair in the dark. “You never have to do anything you don’t wanna do, you know that?” He whispers. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Bucky tries to burrow away from Steve’s hand. “Y’bothering me.”

Steve brushes the hair from his face and fits his thumb into the dimple of Bucky’s chin. “I know.”


	4. Chapter 4

Unfortunately, the world does not stop turning just because Bucky had sex with Steve. He still has to go outside sometimes and help with the grocery list and – worst of all – he still has to make a meeting with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

On the night before he’s supposed to meet the U.S. Attorney, they lay in Steve’s bed and watch a movie on his laptop. It starts off as an average movie, but the ending is really sad; if Bucky still had feelings about things like movies, he would probably care. He doesn’t care.

It seems like Steve does care though. He puts his arms around Bucky and squeezes him tight. When Bucky’s let that go on for a while – long enough that Steve is acting like he’s going to fall asleep – he pushes him away and goes to brush his teeth.

Steve appears in the bathroom doorway, still acting like he’s going to fall asleep. He comes behind Bucky and wraps his arms around his middle, leaning his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder. Reaching back, Bucky scratches his scalp. He only pushes him away when he has to lean over and spit into the sink.

They go back to bed.

Lying together in the dark, Steve continues to cling, snuggling up to Bucky’s side until Bucky puts an arm around him.

Bucky says, “That movie got to you, huh?”

He can feel Steve blushing. “A little. I guess.”

Bucky hums, slipping his fingers under Steve’s collar to touch his warm skin and the gentle bumps of his spine. “Are you embarrassed to tell me that you’re sad?”

“A little,” Steve admits.

Everything is A Little. “Don’t be,” Bucky says. In all their lives, he has seen Steve cry a total of three times; of those, only the second one – when his ma died – really counts, as the first was under the age of ten and the third was when he was delirious with a fever. “You can tell me when you’re sad. It’s just me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you really mean it or are you just saying okay?”

Steve hesitates. “I…No, I think I really mean it.”

“Okay,” Bucky says. He moves his hand to Steve’s hair. It’s getting long enough to really run your fingers through. Bucky closes his eyes, listening to Steve’s nice deep breaths.

The next morning, Bucky lays in bed and pretends to be sleeping. He can hear Steve banging things around in the kitchen for a while, until Steve brings a cup of tea into the bedroom and sits down on the bed.

He messes with Bucky’s hair, which really wrecks Bucky’s pretend sleeping. Bucky has to shove him away. Now Steve knows that he is not sleeping.

“Get up,” Steve says, but Bucky doesn’t get up. “I made you toast and scrambled eggs.”

Ugh. Bucky does not want to eat that; he doesn’t want to eat anything.

Steve leans in and touches Bucky’s hair a little nicer; less razzing. “You feel okay?”

“Yes.”

“Sit up, then. I brought you some tea.”

Oh my god it is approximately 8:45am and Steve is already driving him crazy. “You are driving me crazy,” he says seriously.

Steve chuckles. He thinks it’s funny when Bucky is grumpy and that makes him even grumpier; it’s a cycle where Bucky always loses out. But today, Steve gets over his amusement quickly. Partially because of Bucky’s impeding meeting and partially because they watched a sad movie last night that left Steve a little clingier than usual.

The tea goes into a thermos so Bucky can wrap his hands around it and carry it with him into the car. As they pull into the parking lot, Bucky says, “Do not hold my hand in the meeting.”

“Okay,” Steve says, like a question. “Why not?”

“Just don’t do it.” It’s not worth the air to explain to Steve that you cannot show the other side any weaknesses; he won’t get it and he’ll just get all mad for no reason like he always does.

“Fine.”

Bucky doesn’t really think the U.S. Attorney herself will be there, since she probably has more important things to do than talk to him. But she is there with two of her lawyers, so the people allowed in the meeting are: Bucky, Steve, Simon, Elliot, and the U.S. Attorney and her lawyers. He didn’t end up asking to have Dr. Maribel there because they’d already let him have Steve. Bucky cannot push his luck or he’ll get nothing at all.

They all sit down at a table. The U.S. Attorney lets Bucky keep his thermos. She tells him how appreciated he is and how he’s going to help put away bad people, blah blah blah. Bucky does not care.

If they want the Hydra Defendants “off the streets,” why don’t they just bring Bucky to the jail and give him a gun, or a rope, or a pen. Hell, he could make do with his thermos.

The U.S. Attorney does not do that. Rather, she starts by having Bucky draw the map of Alex’s house again. She’s probably trying to see if Bucky can draw the same thing twice; does she think he’s a fucking idiot? He draws the same map…because of course he does. He got away with dozens of murders for decades, and the U.S. Attorney thinks he can’t draw the same picture twice?

Bucky keeps these thoughts to himself. He’s going to have to tell Dr. Maribel that he didn’t even make any comments.

This meeting is centered around Alex. There are tons of Hydra Defendants, but Bucky is only helping with nine of them, including Alexander Pierce’s Estate. They’re going to have to schedule more meetings. Four more – to be exact – since Steve pressured the U.S. Attorney into keeping the meetings short. Bucky kind of regrets encouraging that. Maybe it would’ve been better to have an eight hour meeting and then be done with it.

It’s too late for that though. Bucky made his decision and now he has to live with it.

So, he answers all kinds of questions about Alex. For a while, it’s very easy. They talk about the house in excruciating detail and the U.S. Attorney’s lawyers fixate on strange things; the middle painting in the hallway, the little white dog Bucky once saw, the cars in the garage.

The questions do not stay easy. They start asking things that make Bucky want to go somewhere else and Steve clench his fist in his lap. Then, one of the lawyers puts a Kleenex box on the table like Bucky’s supposed to cry or something.

Bucky answers the hard questions. He doesn’t even feel like crying. He doesn’t feel like anything but plain air and fuzzy televisions.

Eventually, Steve starts giving more and more Looks at Simon and Elliot that means he might get up and make a scene soon, so Simon and Elliot start making more complaints. They were already making complaints but now it seems like they’re complaining just to be annoying. Like: we didn’t discuss that being relevant to the Pierce case; he won’t be answering that; we’re not willing to go into that level of detail at this stage.

“Last question,” a U.S. Attorney lawyer says, “what did you call Mr. Pierce?”

Bucky is so tired. “Alex,” he says.

He does not remember the car ride home.

When they go inside, Steve plops his keys into the bowl next to the door and touches Bucky’s arm. “You did real good back there, Buck,” he says.

Bucky doesn’t want to hear Steve talking. He changes his clothes and picks up his book to look at the pages, sitting in the chair so Steve cannot come sit next to him.

He does not feel very good today. So, when Steve comes back with his casual clothes, Bucky opens his big mouth and says, “If I got locked up in jail, would you cry?”

“You were never going to get locked up in jail,” Steve says. This is news to Bucky.

“Yes, I almost did. Simon and Elliott knew that.”

“If the lawyers couldn’t work something out, me and you would’ve ran.”

“Ran where?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “Never had to plan that far. I would’ve figured it out.”

Bucky thinks about this plan. It sounds nice when Steve says it so simply but it’s not very realistic. “But if they caught us, the police would kill me for sure. Would you cry then?”

“What kind of question is that?” Steve has gotten really mad really quickly. Bucky did not anticipate this. “Why would you even– God, don’t you _ever_ ask me that shit, Bucky. I mean it. _Do not_ fuckin’ ask me that again. You hear me?”

Bucky nods. His book is closed now. “Yes,” he says.

Steve’s hand shakes as he runs it through his hair. See? Bucky is terrible. He gets up and goes closer to Steve; he might get pushed but that would be okay.

Steve does not push him. That is how good Steve is.

When Bucky died, it broke Steve; not permanently, because that is impossible. Just for long enough to leave Steve stumbling along, hopelessly injured, like a stray that doesn’t know yet that it’s dying. Bucky knows this even though he wasn’t around to see it. He knows it in the way Steve looks at him sometimes.

It was so, so awful of him to say what he said.

With his human hand – because that one is nicer – Bucky touches Steve’s jaw. Steve is upset all because of Bucky; he lets Bucky touch him anyways, putting his hand over Bucky’s to put it on his face.

“I won’t ask ever again,” Bucky promises. (You think that’s going to make it better? You did this. Look at him!)

“I’d appreciate that.” Still sad.

Bucky slings an arm around Steve’s neck, pulls him close. “I love you,” he says, and Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

Their foreheads lean together. “I love you back.”

  
  


Bucky crawls across their mattress. “What’s the most times you ever made me come?”

Steve puts down his book. “Bucky, what do you want?”

“I wanna suck you, but first I want you to tell me what’s the most times you ever made me come.” Bucky kisses him, but only for a little bit because he actually does want to know the answer.

“I dunno,” Steve says, “how many times did you come the other day?” He tries to kiss him again, but Bucky pulls back.

“But during the war?”

“We couldn’t take that much time during the war.”

That is a good enough answer. Bucky starts kissing him, running his hands under Steve’s shirt so he shivers and grabs Bucky by the back of his neck.

When Steve asks him to, Bucky puts two fingers inside him, and he comes so hard that Bucky can feel how good it was by the way he shouts and writhes against Bucky’s fingers for a while afterwards. And, well, Bucky can’t just watch Steve have an orgasm like that and not get a little curious; so then he wants to have a try.

  
  


Natasha and Sam come over to have dinner with them. Except Natasha comes over halfway through the day to help Steve with the grocery shopping. This is because Bucky does not like the grocery store one bit, but he still gets a little mad when they leave. He is being ridiculous.

Bucky watches the Australian lifeguard show for a while. No one dies. In fact, no one ever dies on this show unless Steve is watching. For the sake of all the people in Australia, it’s probably best that he doesn’t watch it that often.

Steve and Natasha come back with a lot of bags and carry them into the kitchen. If it was just Steve, Bucky might go help. But he does not feel very helpful today, so he keeps watching his show and pretends like he doesn’t see them.

After putting down his bags, Steve comes to give Bucky a kiss. Bucky tilts his face up for it but he also frowns at Steve and Steve just smiles at him – because he is a dope – and goes back to Natasha.

The noise in the kitchen goes quiet. Steve and Natasha have gone out to the balcony.

Bucky turns off the TV, even though he is right in the middle of an episode and now he will not get to see where the lost child the lifeguards are looking for has gotten off to. He gets out his book and opens to a random page, listening.

See, Natasha probably does not know that Bucky can hear them from inside. Steve must though.

He is saying, “…can, Nat!”

“I don’t trust anybody who ever ate boiled cabbage,” she says. Teasing.

They’re just talking about cooking! Bucky turned off his show for this.

It gets quiet and Bucky thinks about maybe just giving this up and finding out what happened to the lost child.

Then, Natasha says, “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”

Okay, it’s probably good that he did not give up so easily.

“What makes you say that?” Steve asks. Oh, Stevie, she is a spy. And she was in their apartment for almost an hour today. (And he’s been broadcasting how bad he wants to fuck you for at least the past year, probably longer.)

“It’s not an accusation, Steve. You’re just a little different with him today. Easier, I’d say.”

It is not just today – they’ve been sleeping together for almost three weeks – but she hasn’t been around to know that. The thing is: Steve can actually keep secrets; he did it alright in the war. But now, he doesn’t have any motivation and so he practically announces everything. Bucky is just fine with that because he kind of wants Steve’s friends to know that he’s sleeping with him.

They can have Steve during the day and go all kinds of places with him, but where does he end up at night? Yeah, with Bucky.

Bucky is being ridiculous. It’s a good thing nobody can see inside his head anymore.

“I’m happy for you,” Natasha says, and then he feels a little bad. Steve has good friends.

Steve is probably blushing like crazy; Bucky wishes he could see it. “Thanks, Nat.”

Soon after that, they come inside and start acting like they’re going to cook dinner. Bucky didn’t see what they bought from the store, but Steve knows all the food rules and the things Bucky will not eat. So, that is good.

Sam comes over to play the chef game with Bucky; well, he actually came over to have dinner with Steve and Natasha, but he plays Switches with Bucky while the food is cooking.

When it’s time for dinner, Steve quietly makes Bucky a plate while the others dip the serving spoons in and scoop out their own food. This is because Bucky does not like to choose his own foods, nor does he like being given an unquantifiable amount. And Steve knows the food rules really well.

Steve sends Sam and Natasha out to the dining room with things to put on the table and then he turns to Bucky, showing him the plate. Beef and broccoli and rice. “Good?” He asks.

Bucky hangs on his shoulder. “This plain rice?”

“Mmhm,” Steve says, giving him the plate. “What, you didn’t want any Worcestershire sauce in there, did you? Cause I was thinking about adding some kiwi, maybe a whole lime, but–”

Bucky smacks him on the ass. He smiles.

They go out to the dining room to sit with Sam and Natasha. Bucky doesn’t really talk, but the chatter around him is okay. Steve’s friends tease him about a bunch of things that Bucky wasn’t around for while Bucky gets to eat his food and listen to funny stories.

Even after they’ve all finished their plates, they sit around to talk some more. Sam brought some nice smelling brownies, which Steve brings out. Bucky does not eat one because that will probably make him sick and he’d much rather have a popsicle. But he does not say that because that would be awfully rude.

Then, they go to watch a movie. While Natasha gets the movie ready, Steve sits down next to Bucky and puts his arm over the back of the couch. His arm slips around Bucky’s shoulders as he’s trying to deflect Sam’s teasing – which is not working very well for him.

It’s just a little touch – Steve’s friends are here, after all; he’s not thinking about what his arm is doing – but it’s really nice. A different kind of nice; casual, everyday nice. The kind of nice that you don’t really pay much attention to and then someday, if it was ever gone, the shocking absence of it would do you in.

The lights turn off so that they can see the TV. Bucky can tell the moment Steve starts paying attention to him again; his arm pulls a little bit tighter. Bucky wants to hold his hand, so he does. They watch the movie.

  
  


It is dark. Approximately 2:30am. Steve is breathing fast, heart going fast.

“Bucky?” He asks. He is scared. From the way he says it, Bucky can tell that Steve has asked that before, in this same situation, in that same voice, and gotten no response.

Bucky is very sleepy, but he says, “Yeah. Come here.”

Steve hugs him tight. He is calming down right away. Unlike Bucky – who sometimes wants to be touched, sometimes can’t stand it; sometimes wants to sleep again, sometimes wants to get up – Steve is simple. Normal.

Steve just wants Bucky to hold him and say nice things, like “’s just a dream, baby” and “yeah, Stevie, right here” so he can go back to sleep.

So, Bucky does that. Steve falls asleep, breathing warm and easy. Things are good again.

  
  


Dr. Maribel is making Bucky go outside with someone else, but he is not allowed to pick Steve; and when Bucky tries to wiggle out of it, she says they will discuss it in one week. That means she’s going to make him do it eventually no matter how many times he tries to make deals.

When she brings it up one week later, Bucky ignores her, sprinkling a few chocolate almonds into his palm. Most of Dr. Maribel’s clients aren’t supposed to have snacks during their sessions – probably because they might smash it into the chairs or talk with their mouths open. But she lets Bucky bring little snacks and sweet drinks. She says that this is entirely because they are a Comfort Item for Bucky, but he’d bet good money that it’s also because she likes him.

He is interesting. People want to know what’s inside his brain. If Dr. Maribel tries to take away his snacks, Bucky will just leave and find a new doctor. No problem.

After a moment, Dr. Maribel says, “Would you like me to repeat the question?”

Bucky heard the question just fine. He gives one last shot at wiggling out of it. “I can’t go out with a friend.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“Ah. Then let’s talk about what happened between you and Sam Wilson.”

Ugh.

So, Bucky gets stuck agreeing to go outside with Sam instead of Steve.

  
  


Steve is kissing him, hands in his hair and running up his thigh. This is: okay. Usually it is good – really fucking amazing, actually – but something is wrong with Bucky today. He doesn’t think this Wrong thing was there this morning. It must have started sometime around 1400 to 1500. When Bucky thinks about the things that happened during that time period, he cannot think of anything that could have caused him to be Wrong.

Bucky tries to focus; he’s slipping somewhere else.

He’s being so fucking dumb, is what he’s doing. They’ve had sex so many times and Bucky has never stopped it. And nothing bad even happened today! He will pretend. He kisses Steve back and puts a hand down his pants.

But his pretending is not good enough and Steve realizes. He stops. “Bucky?” Steve asks, moving his hands to Bucky’s arm, his shoulder. “Bucky.”

(Oh, he’s going to be mad. This is what you get for fucking him.)

Steve’s got his hand on Bucky’s face, climbing clumsily out of his lap.

(“Say the rest now, you stupid bitch. No, you already started, say the rest.”)

“I don’t want to right now,” Bucky mumbles, looking down at his lap.

“Okay.” Steve’s backed off entirely, like he’s afraid to lay a finger on Bucky.

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t say sorry.”

“Kay.”

Steve looks like he’s been punched when Bucky says that, so he takes Steve’s hand. He wants to pull him in, but that will mean he wants sex.

No! Stop being dumb. Steve promised.

Bucky leans his forehead against Steve’s collarbone and – haltingly – Steve threads his fingers through Bucky’s hair. “Maybe later,” Bucky lies.

“That’s– Look, I don’t want to anymore either.”

Steve is telling a lie.

“Stop lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

Bucky grits his teeth, lifting his head. “Stop. Lying.” He drops Steve’s hand, too. For good measure. See? He can make it stop.

“What, you think this does something for me? To see you like this?”

Bucky scoots back onto the bed and draws his knees up. “No,” he admits.

Taking a breath, Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Do you– Should I leave you alone or…?”

“I’m going to take a bath.”

“Okay, I can lay some clothes out for you.”

“Can you…” Bucky does not know what to say. Why can’t he just have the hair washing and the nice baths without having sex? See, he knew this would happen. He knew this would happen. Bucky got greedy and he sold his soul and now he cannot have nice baths and nice naps, because that will mean he wants sex, and he does not. He lost those good things when he chose the sex.

Steve is talking to him. “–that, too. Do you want me to do that?”

Bucky has to ask: “Do what?” Because he was not listening. And he was not listening because he is a terrible listener who cannot comply with simple instructions. Someone told him that once. They are probably dead now, but they were right.

See? He was not listening again, and now he still doesn’t know what Steve told him even though he said it two times.

“Bucky?” Steve says.

“What?”

He waits, like he’s not sure Bucky will listen this time either. “What were you wanting me to do?”

“Can you sit with me?”

“Yeah, Buck. I’ll sit with you.”

Steve pulls a chair into the bathroom so he can face the tub properly. He makes the water hot and rolls up his sleeves and doesn’t care when the water gets all over him anyways. Steve is not good at being careful.

  
  


When Bucky wakes up, he can’t remember what he’d been dreaming about but it’s like his body was saving all the want he didn’t have yesterday for today. Beside him, Steve is still asleep on his back. Bucky kisses his face.

“Wha...?” Steve says, barely awake as Bucky climbs over him and drags sloppy kisses down his neck.

“Wake up,” Bucky hisses.

“’m awake,” Steve mumbles back. He takes Bucky’s chin and pulls him up for a kiss, clumsy and sleepy.

Desperate to take the edge off, Bucky rocks into him, groaning. Steve’s already hard beneath him; he can go and go and go, and at first Bucky thought it was because he teased him up so bad, but no, turns out it’s the serum. Thank God.

Steve gets both hands on Bucky’s ass and grinds him in, giving him just a taste of friction. God, Bucky wants it so bad, he feels like he could go off already. He breaks the kiss and shucks off his pants; grabs Steve’s boxers and pulls them down to his knees, just enough so Bucky can swallow his cock down.

Steve’s hands are restlessly messing with his hair. “God, Bucky,” he sighs. Bucky bobs up and down; no wasting time with teasing. He sucks him with a single-minded purpose ‘till Steve’s tugging back on his hair.

Then, Bucky pops off and crawls back up, kissing Steve lazily on the mouth. He grips Steve’s shoulder to pull him overtop; he rolls with it, giving Bucky one last smacking kiss on the lips and then swatting his hip. “Lay back,” Steve says.

Steve is not getting anywhere near him until he has the lube and since he’s apparently forgotten that, Bucky fishes it out of the drawer and tosses it to him.

Smiling sheepishly, Steve pops it open and squeezes some on his hand. See? He always forgets because he can’t keep more than one thought in his head when he’s all worked up and then he has to say: Bucky, get the lube, will you? And Bucky has to get up from his comfy position and get it.

Steve is nice and careful as he works Bucky open; he never rushes this part, even when he’s at his bossiest. “More,” Bucky groans, squirming, and Steve gives him another finger. Steve’s fingers itch up – that’s it, the move that makes Bucky’s eyes water – and Bucky moans, canting his hips. He gets another.

But he wants _more_ more; wants Steve to fuck him till he’s begging him to slow down so he doesn’t come before he’s told and break a rule. He wants Steve to get himself off using Bucky’s ass and then put it back in like he never got to during the war.

Feeling like he’d give anything to Steve, Bucky says, “Fuck, get up here.”

“Yes, Buck?” Steve says, grinning; the shithead.

Bucky looks him in the eyes. That shuts him up. “Want you to fuck me.” Bucky grabs his face and kisses him before he can give some smartass response.

Fumbled against Bucky’s lips, Steve asks, “Y’sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Now?”

“Yes, Steve.”

Steve takes his cock in his hand, lining himself up. He rubs the head of it against Bucky’s hole, making him push up, still barely getting any relief.

“You’ll tell me if you change your mind?” Steve asks.

“Steve, shut the fuck up.”

Steve chuckles at him as he slicks himself up; fucking shithead, Jesus H. Christ. Achingly slow, he slides in. The stretch hurts a little but Bucky feels _full_. No one else has ever done this to him, and no one else ever will.

“Ah fuck,” Bucky groans. It’s so good. It’s…fuck, he wanted this so bad and Steve’s not even moving yet. He’s needed this so fucking bad.

“I know, sweetheart,” Steve says, kissing him. He pulls halfway out; then back in, leisurely.

“Steve, Stevie, c’mon. N-no teasing.”

Steve eases all the way out and snaps his hips; and Bucky throws his head back, his cock pulsing desperately. Steve does it again and pre-come dribbles onto Bucky’s stomach; God, he’s just brushing the spot. Bucky tries to squirm up against him.

“Gonna come already, Buck?” He teases, grasping loosely at Bucky’s leaking cock, swishing a finger across the head.

“No,” Bucky lies. He swats Steve’s hand away.

Then, finally, Steve shuts the hell up and starts fucking him in earnest. He can feel the moment Steve gets serious; leaning up, watching Bucky with rapt devotion, hands forcing his hips into the position he wants. Oh, he missed this; holy hell did he miss this. Steve fucks him just like he does everything else; with all his attention narrowed in.

Bucky wraps a hand around his cock. He’s gotta move his hand only because Steve’s got his hips tilted _right there_. But Steve takes Bucky’s hand off and replaces it with his own, pulling Bucky off in slow strokes. Not enough.

“Faster,” Bucky gasps.

“No.” Steve goes slower.

Oh God, Steve’s hand is a tormenting, weighty pull down his dick and Bucky knows if he asks again, Steve will go even slower. Just the thought of it makes Bucky groan. Steve slows his thrusts to let some spit drop from his mouth onto Bucky’s cock. When he starts moving again…oh, it’s so good; it’s so, so good. His hand makes a wet slick sound on Bucky’s cock.

Steve is in him and over him and all Bucky can do is lie there and get fucked. Steve’s hand is still moving so goddamn slow but that’s all Bucky’s gonna get no matter what he says.

Bucky’s legs try to squeeze together, but Steve forces them further apart. “Stop that,” he rumbles, and then Steve takes his hand from Bucky’s hip and puts it in his hair and pulls his head back. Nice pulling. Okay, he could take more than that.

Bucky whines, clenching around Steve. Steve grins. Oh, Bucky is caught. “That hard enough for you, Buck?” But Bucky doesn’t answer, so Steve says, “Ah c’mon, you can tell me.”

“A little harder,” Bucky pleads.

Steve fists his hands in Bucky’s hair; pulls. It’s barely any harder! “Like that, Buck?” Oh, he _knows_ Bucky didn’t mean like that.

“Steve, c’mon.”

Slamming into him, fingers tangled in his hair, Steve says, “Tell me what you want or you’re not gonna get it. ‘N I know you’re close so you better tell me quick.” And he’s right. Fuck, he’s right. Steve’s hand is doing that slow, twisting thing on his cock. No, no, no.

“Please, Stevie, harder. I need– more, please.”

Steve readjusts his grip in Bucky’s hair. Bucky’s whimpering already because he knows what’s he’s gonna get and it’s so goddamn good – he’s right there, dangling – and Steve _yanks_.

Bucky can’t starve it off any longer; Steve’s hand is drawing pulses out of his cock and he’s arching up for it, begging nonsense – “Oh God, fuck, Stevie, ah that’s…. yeah keep– oh, shit…” – and shooting hot on his stomach with a rhythmic, blinding pleasure.

Steve grabs his hand, puts it on his own dick so Steve can get both hands back on Bucky’s hips and yank him up off the bed, fuck into him; rough, biting on his lip. He shakes his head just once, thrusts up hard and freezes there, groaning as he shoots off deep inside Bucky.

“Mmmm,” Steve says, rocking lazily into him.

“Th’ was good,” Bucky murmurs, his hand stroking the last drops out of his own cock while Steve runs a finger through the lines on Bucky’s stomach.

Steve pulls out; kisses him through it. He swipes a spot of come from Bucky’s chin and slips his messy fingers between Bucky’s lips, and Bucky could swear a little more dribbles out of his cock when he sees the way Steve’s eyes get, just from watching him.

“Been a while, huh?”

It has been two days. “Yeah,” Bucky agrees.

Rolling off, Steve sprawls out on his back, letting his arm hang off the bed. A pleased little smile on his face. What a smartass he is.

Bucky pulls Steve’s boxers – still around his ankles, nearly in two tattered pieces – off, using them to wipe down his stomach. He touches around his face but gets nothing; Steve cleaned him off good.

They’ll probably be ready to go again in a minute or so, but Bucky doesn’t wanna rush this part either. This is a secret he’ll never tell: he feels most connected to Steve in times like this; even more than when they’re having sex.

Steve is looking at him. “What?”

Bucky pushes himself onto his elbows and runs a hand through Steve’s hair. Steve’s loose fingers run up and down Bucky’s human arm. This is: lucky. (You are lucky.)

“C’mere,” Steve says, sweaty and languid, “gimme a kiss.” So, Bucky does.

  
  


It’s nearly lunchtime by the time they get out of bed. Bucky watches Steve dig through the fridge, but they need to go to the store. “Scrambled eggs okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky says, scoping out the carton of eggs. Six left. “Do we have toast?”

“No. Sorry, Buck, I’ll go to the store later.” Steve sets a thing of applesauce on the counter. “Just have a snack for now.”

“Can we go get a muffin?”

“From the coffee shop?” Steve asks, and Bucky nods. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

Bucky does not want to go until he has something in his stomach. He takes their last applesauce and peels it open, nudging the fork drawer closed with his hip. While he spoons it into his mouth, Steve goes to his bedroom to put some real clothes on.

Steve comes back quickly, ready to go. “Go get dressed, c’mon,” he says. Bucky takes a big last spoonful of his applesauce and tosses it.

They go to the coffee shop. Steve does all the talking.

  
  


They sit on their balcony, sharing a cigarette in the thick, muggy air. Steve is wearing nothing but Bucky’s red shorts; Bucky knows this because he watched him slip them on not even five minutes ago. The little white string is still untied. Buying those shorts was one of the better ideas Bucky has ever had.

Steve’s skin is honey gold in the dying sunlight. His hair is all messed up and there’s a smattering of fading bruises along his collarbone; any neighbors who look over here are going to know that he’s just been having all kinds of sex with Bucky. In his lap, he’s cradling a plate of leftovers. Just a snack before their delivery good gets here.

Bucky taps their cigarette against the ashtray. “Don’t eat it all,” he complains.

“Sorry,” Steve says, mouth full like all Sarah’s scolding never made its way through his thick skull.

They trade. Bucky wins out because he gets the food and all Steve gets is one half-burned through cigarette.

Steve takes a long drag and blows the smoke out over the railing. It floats into wisps above the city. The cigarette cannot touch his lungs anymore.

If anyone else ever married Steve, they would have to stand up in front of everybody and swear “in sickness and in health.” And they would be a goddamn liar because nobody alive but Bucky has ever known Steve in sickness and now, nobody else ever will.

“Want it?” Steve says, offering the cigarette. He doesn’t even want a trade; he would give everything over, that’s how good he is.

Bucky shakes his head.

Watching Steve smoke, Bucky says, “Your dick is too big for those shorts.’

Steve sputters and coughs. He looks awfully cool when he’s smoking but he’s really not. Not even a little bit. “ _Bucky_ ,” he hisses, like he’s scandalized. What a joke. Steve glances at the opposite apartment building as if the people living over there can hear Bucky talking about Steve’s dick.

“Oh, relax.” Bucky shovels another bite into his mouth. “And don’t move around too much or you’ll give ‘em a show.”

“Well, look who’s talkin’. You’ve been wearing these around for months.”

Yes, Stevie, that was the point. Bucky watches realization dawn on his face; amazing.

Frowning, Steve says, “You’re a jerk, Buck.”

Bucky gives him a shit-eating grin and Steve’s lips do that thing when he’s trying not to smile back. Steve shakes his head, pressing the cigarette into the tray. He’s so good and so damn easy to see through; it’d be far too easy for the wrong person to take him apart.

See, Bucky’s quicker to yell and cry and break things but he’s also been kicked down all kinds of ways. It’s Steve who’s a real contradiction; he’d never let himself be stepped over, but a single cruelty from one of the rare people he’s poured his heart into, and the light falls from his eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Steve asks.

“You.”

Steve leans over and kisses his lips. He tastes like smoke and the last stuffy breaths of summer. The neighbors really could see them out here and that would be a PR fiasco, but Bucky doesn’t care.

Steve pulls back. “I know you’re just being sweet to make me forget you’re a tease.”

“Are you forgetting?”

“No.” Steve is telling lies.

Bucky passes the food back so Steve can eat the last few bites. Their real food will be here soon anyways.

Looking over with his summer sky blue eyes, Steve says, “For me?”

Bucky slouches back in his chair. “For you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for this being so late! Trying to become a lawyer in the middle of a pandemic is not ideal for writing. Anyways, thank you for reading and for your patience! Stay safe and be kind. -L


End file.
